


Fire For Blood

by SphinxAkashaa



Series: I Am Magic [2]
Category: Magic - Fandom, Original Urban Fantasy, Original Work, Wizards - Fandom
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Half-Demon, I Am Magic, Romance, Urban Fantasy, Windwalker, Wizard, faerie - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:33:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6512863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SphinxAkashaa/pseuds/SphinxAkashaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wizard and High-School teacher Malak Joseph Oberon Grant, also known as the Windwalker, makes a trip to his adopted mother's grave. While there he remembers a first kiss, the manifestation of his first 'gift', and the warmth and love of his family. He also encounters someone from his past that he had not quite anticipated...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Full Circle

It's strange to me how, sometimes, the best memories we have are often times the most painful to relive. Sure, I've lived a long time - hell, most people my age have already forgotten more than they'd like. My mind doesn't quite work that way.

Magic.

Well, that and mysterious genetics, I suppose.

I stood out in the rain, a bouquet of lilies in my hand, staring down at a stone that, if I'd had any say at all in it, would never have had to be there. My dreadlocks were getting wetter as the downpour continued, but I didn't care. I just kept staring at the stone, trying to decide on what to say, but I couldn't. There was no focusing on that. Many times many years of this and I never really knew how to begin.

So, I decided to begin with a memory.

Lucky for me, there had been a particular one circling my mind…

* * *

It was my birthday (or, at least, the day we were calling my birthday) and I had turned fifteen. It happened to fall on a school day and, against my pleas of "but it's my birthday", my mother had made me go to classes. It wasn't that I minded school at all. To be honest, I loved school, itself; I did really well considering I went to a school for the gifted (at least it was back then. New Orleans has changed a lot since Hurricane Katrina. Don't let anyone tell you anything different.) and I liked all of my teachers, for the most part.

No, it was a good deal of my classmates that I wasn't a fan of. In a school for the gifted and ridiculously intelligent, you'd think that everyone would see themselves as on the same team, right? Nerds United and all of that.

Wrong.

From the moment I pulled my first A+ paper on the theoretical application of string theory to the creation of the first Faster-Than-Light drive for space travel, I was immediately ostracized as the "Mega Nerd". There were very few of my classmates that actually took the time to get to know me, choosing instead to partake in the weird TV high school cliques that I thought were an absolute farce.

As a result, I was dubbed as one of the "weird kids", by just about everyone.

Well, everyone except for Valarie Amari.

Val was my very best friend in all of the world. We'd met in the third grade when she defended me from a group of kids on the school bus who were bullying me for being adopted.

She was able to relate, being adopted as well. Her parents had come over to the states from somewhere in Romania when she was a baby, and, not long after, they were killed in an auto accident near the Irish Channel. She was 6 months old, so, like me, she never really knew her parents at all.

I remember the fire in her eyes when she punched the first boy in the nose, the rest had been a blur of her fists and eight to ten year old boys screaming as she wailed on anyone who approached. Since then, she'd been my best friend and my champion.

Since then, I had also been madly in love with her…or whatever passes for that when you're eight years old.

She had absolutely no clue.

In any case, school had let out and we were walking together from our bus a few blocks down the street. She lived with her adopted mother, Ms. Helena Nguyen, in a small two story home a few blocks away from where I lived with my parents and my sister Caitlin in New Orleans East.

"There is no way at all that Spider-Man could possibly take down, Batman!" She argued, her long, dark brown hair hung in a ponytail that gave way to her terracotta colored skin and soft, rounded features. The jean jacket she wore was old, likely from the nearby thrift shop and hid the developed breasts that I tried very hard to not notice. (I was 15, give me a break, okay?). Her long, dark skirt hid the amazing legs that I'd seen only during PE or in the summertime spent at the pool. She caught me staring at them once and gave me a punch on the shoulder for it that I'd felt for weeks after.

Worth it.

"Spidey would totally take the Bat down, easily." I rebutted, my hands in the pockets of my grey hoodie, as I shuffled beside her in my jeans and worn down converse. My hair was a lot shorter then, and I'd kept it cropped close to my head in an even style the other kids had taken to calling "Ivy League". "Batman's whole strategy is based on preparation for his enemies after learning everything he can about them."

Val raised an eyebrow at me and I felt my cheeks warm. Today was going to be the day, I thought to myself. Today I would tell her how I felt. As soon as we settled this argument. "So you're saying that if Spider-Man were to catch Batman completely unprepared…"

I grinned confidently. "Then he would easily defeat him within a few panels; proportionate speed and strength of a spider."

Val laughed at me then. "Verses years of training and all of the gadgets his money could buy? Are you also forgetting that he's an expert strategist?"

"I got two words for you, Val." I said as we rounded a corner together. "Spider-sense!"

Val made a frustrated grunt and I knew that there was no way that either of us would gain any further ground. "You're impossible, Mal." She sighed, bumping me with her shoulder, a bit of a playful grin on her face.

I beamed at her. It wasn't often that I could argue Valarie to a draw, so I took my victories where and when I could. "I know, and I'm lucky that we're best friends." I repeated the words that she'd said to me over and over again since the beginning of middle school.

She stopped walking then, giving me a sad smile. "Yeah."

"Val?" I stopped beside her, reminding myself how much taller she was than me. It was only 3 inches, but back then it might as well have been a foot. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head, slowly. "It's nothing."

She tried to keep walking, but I walked around to stand in front of her. "Val, you know I know you're lying, right?"

She giggled a little bit, then. "That's just because you know me so well, Mal."

I took a deep breath and decided that now might as well be the best time. At best it would cheer her up, at worst, I'd give her a good laugh. Either way felt like a win to me. "You know there's the homecoming dance coming up in a couple of weeks. You going?"

"No." Was all she said back.

I blinked. I hadn't expected that answer. I felt my heart sink about a foot. "Um, why not."

She turned her head away from me, wrapping her arms around herself. I'd never seen her like this; she looked so…vulnerable. It was a bit scary and more than a little heartbreaking. "No one's asked me."

My eyes went wide as I gave my best friend a once over. There wasn't anything about her that wasn't amazing to me. She was absolutely beautiful. I could tell that she would grow up to look like one of those gorgeous models that soccer players were always dating. It bothered me on a deep level that no one had asked her out yet.

"C'mon, Val. I'm sure that when you get home there'll be a hundred messages on your answering machine, all of them from dudes just dying to take you to the dance."

Holy crap, what was I doing? I wanted to be the one to take her. Why was I sabotaging myself?

She looked at me, the tears had started to pool in her eyes, and I couldn't worry about myself anymore. Damnit, Mal. You damned softie! "Do you really think so?" She wiped her eyes, doing her best to put on a braver face.

I nodded. "I know so, Val." I sighed. "If I thought I had a chance, I'd have asked you out ages ago." I confessed, trying hard to be a friend to her and not mad at myself for practically opening the door to every boy that ever looked at her the way I did. "You can do a lot better than me though -"

"Wait!" Val stopped me. I didn't notice until then, but her expression had changed, there was a look of surprise and a pained happiness, I wasn't sure. Maybe it was pity, that's it, it was pity. Had to be. "Back up a sec. Did you just say that you wanted to ask me out?"

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I did say that, didn't I? Out loud and everything. "Er…yeah?"

She narrowed her eyes and gave me the kind of stare that could bore through solid steel. "Were you being serious, just then, or were you trying to make me feel better?"

Crap, crap, CRAP! My heart started to jackhammer in my chest and I lost control of my breathing as I stared at my best friend. The girl I both loved and feared in equal measure.

"Mal!"

I snapped out of my daze. "Um…yeah, Valerie." I answered her, softly. "I've wanted to…well…I…"

Her eyebrows were raised. "Keep talking, Mal…"

I closed my eyes and took as deep a breath as I was able to and then blew it out in a soft and steady stream. It was something dad had taught me to do whenever I was nervous about something. _Think about the thing you want to say and then just say it, son. Sometimes you only get one chance, so take it!_

"Damnit, Mal! OUT WITH IT!"

"I'm in love with you!" I nearly shouted, damned near jumping out of my skin.

Silence, followed by more silence, followed by Enter the silence, brought to you by Abbot and Costello and Silence meet the Mummy. (The mummy is also played by Silence), soundtrack consisting of only Depech Mode's "Enjoy the Silence", silently.

Silence.

I couldn't believe that I had just said it. Val just stood there, staring at me for all of that time, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape. Damnit, Mal, say something cool!

"You…" She said, her voice almost a whisper. "You…you're…in love with me?" She asked before I could say anything more, holding the straps of her backpack as she stared at me, her fingers absently toying with them.

I nodded. "Yeah." I said. "For a while now."

She cocked her head to one side at that. "Really?" The tone of surprise, of disbelief. "How long?"

"Remember the time you punched out those kids for teasing me on the school bus?"

She narrowed her eyes a little. "That was the day we met, Mal."

I swallowed hard, trying to hide a shy smile. "Well…"

She blinked, her eyes getting slightly wider. "Seriously?"

I nodded, unable to speak. This was going to be painful, I could tell.

She looked away, at the concrete, then at the grass, then back at me. There was confusion in her face that bordered on concern. "But…" she started, taking a step closer. "you never said anything before, not once!" She stopped, her face was inches away from mine, but I couldn't see that. All I was seeing was that I had made the mistake of opening up to her and that now I had ruined everything.

It was my turn to look away then. "I didn't think that you would ever see me that way, Val." I said softly, not really sure if she was able to hear me. "I'm just the skinny kid from down the street and, well, look at you. You're gorgeous! You could have any attractive guy in the school that you wanted." I looked her in the eye, determined to face her. If this was how our friendship ended, then I had to face that. I did this, I needed to own it. "I know I'm not as attractive as the guys who have the hots for you. They're all tall and muscled and play crazy amounts of sports and drive nice cars and can give you whatever you want! What am I compared to that?" I struggled to keep the tears from approaching my eyes, insecurities on full on hyper-mode. "What am I compared to them?"

Her hand moved so fast, I didn't even register it until it had hit me full on the left cheek.

My world was a white flash of pain that stung and shook, and I had enough time to stumble a bit and look up at her, to see the same fire in her eyes that I had seen when we were eight, to think: _Welp,_ _I'm dead. Goodbye cruel world, nice knowing ya!_

I didn't register her lips on mine for about half a second. They were soft, softer than I had imagined them to be. My hands went wild for a moment and I could feel and hear her shuffling, then I heard her backpack hit the pavement.

My arms went around her waist almost instantly after that, her arms looping around my neck and shoulder, pulling me against her. Our inexperienced lips stumbled and shook as they discovered each other for the first time. My heart was racing, my mind a haze of sensation and emotion.

She pulled away from me for a moment, her face a mix of anger and warmth. "Don't you ever talk like that, Mal." She said her voice full of molten steel, her hands grasping my shoulders. "You want to know what you are in compared to all of that? "She kissed my lips again, hard and with a fire that made my knees buckle. "You are the boy I've loved since the fifth grade." Her scowl morphed into a smile and a tear fell down her face. "You brilliant idiot!"

I reached up and cupped her face in my palm, smiling back at her. It felt as good as it looked in the movies and I felt this wonderful chill run up my back as the butterflies in my stomach danced the mamba. I wiped the tear away from the smooth skin of her cheek with my thumb, and I smiled. "I didn't know,…I…" I laughed, the pool of tears in my eyes began to spill over. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head at me, releasing one of her hands to cup my face as well. "Shut up, Mal." She laughed. "I don't care that you're skinny or that you're adopted or any of that. It's always just been you. I've always wanted to tell you, I was just scared."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know the feeling."

"But you told me today." She said, her fingers caressing the back of my neck. It may have been clumsy, but that didn't stop it from feeling absolutely amazing. "Why now?"

I looked at her and leaned upwards and gave her as tender a kiss as I knew how to give. "I couldn't stand the idea of you not knowing." I answered. "I needed to tell you, it's been making me crazy and I couldn't….didn't care if it meant our friendship was over."

She smiled at me. "Well, you were right about one thing."

I cocked my head to the side. "What?"

"You definitely aren't my friend anymore." She released me and turned to pick up her backpack off of the sidewalk.

"Oh." I said, feeling my heart plummeting into oblivion. "Ok." I watched her shift her backpack onto one shoulder. She gave me this look as if I had mispronounced a very important word or confused Quicksilver with The Flash.

She laughed. "You really are a clueless boy, aren't you?" She kissed me again, and I felt the world light up again, felt myself feel almost weightless in her arms. She pulled away after what felt like a blissful eternity. "I obviously meant that you're my boyfriend now, stupid!" She shook her head at me, taking my hand in hers, our fingers interlacing. She stared at our hands together for a moment. "I mean, if that's what you want." Her face was hopeful, but there was fear in her eyes for the first time. That was something I had never seen in her, I wasn't sure how to feel about that at all.

The one thing I did know was that today, for certain, was certainly a day for firsts.

I looked at our hands entwined together, and I relished in how good that felt. "Valarie, I've wanted to be your boyfriend since before we were old enough to cross the street by ourselves." I beamed at her, and her smile radiated at me like the sun at Christmas.

Those butterflies just know how to throw a party in my stomach.

We walked the rest of the three blocks to her house with our hands entwined, talking about just about everything our minds were able to focus on. There were, however, a few distractions as we would stop every few feet to kiss each other red in the face.

Okay, so there were more than a few.

At last, we arrived at her home, a brown brick and siding two-story home that she and her mother lived in. I walked her up to the door, our hands still tangled together, my thumb caressing her knuckles and memorizing the skin there. We stood there for a moment, looking at each other and smiling like a couple of idiots.

"So, about the dance…" I started.

Val smiled at me. "Yes, of course I'll go with you, Mal." She bit her bottom lip and I felt this heat in my core that I didn't understand, but all I wanted, in that moment, was to push her against the door and kiss her senseless. I reigned myself in and calmly stretched up to her lips and laid a gentle kiss, which she returned by holding me there and prolonging the contact.

"Ahem!"

We were both startled apart and looked towards the door. An older, Asian woman sat in the doorway in a wheelchair, regarding us with a look of stern warning. Her dark hair was streaked here and there with gray and her brown eyes were narrowed but warm. She was very beautiful, and, occasionally, very scary.

I suddenly remembered where Valarie had acquired her tough exterior and the place on my cheek where she slapped me began to throb a little. "Good evening, Ms. Nguyen." I said, rather sheepishly.

"Hi, mom" Valarie spoke softly, blushing feverishly.

Ms. Nguyen considered us both in silence for a moment. "So." She said, making a tepee out of her fingers, "It looks like things have certainly…'developed' as of late." She looked over at her daughter, who only nodded her acknowledgement. "And when were you planning on telling me this, Valerie?"

Valarie quickly answered her mother, it wasn't good to be slow in answering Ms. Nguyen. I had learned that the hard way when we were smaller and I had accidentally knocked over a flower pot in her back yard. My nose would occasionally still feel echoes of her finger plucking the answer out of me. "It only just happened, mamma."

Ms. Nguyen now looked to me, an eye of suspicion scanned me over and I felt like I was about to be handcuffed to a chair and interrogated.

Ms. Nguyen used to be Lieutenant Nguyen for the N.O.P.D., so there was every chance that it could happen. She glanced at Val, who stood, nervously, beside me. "I'm sure that you have plenty of homework to do, my girl. You should get to it and then prepare for dinner." She noticed that Val and I had never let go of each other's hand and nodded. "We'll talk more later. Mr. Grant and I have some things to discuss."

I gulped, loudly.

Valarie gave her mother a nervous glance, but, and I wasn't quite sure, but I swore I saw Ms. Nguyen wink at Valarie.

Val squeezed my hand gently and smiled at me. "Bye, Mal. I'll see you tomorrow morning?"

I smiled, beaming at her as she let go of my hand and walked across the threshold and behind her mother. "Yeah, bright and early. Same as always." I answered brightly.

Val turned and walked further into the house, stopping briefly to wave at me.

I waved back, the euphoria coursing through me like a drug.

"Malak Joseph Oberon Grant." Ms. Nguyen spoke, snapping my mind out of its haze and me to full attention.

I gulped again. "Yes…yes ma'am?"

She raised an eyebrow at me. "My daughter has harbored quite the crush on you…for quite some time, as I recall. You were aware of this, I assume."

"No ma'am." I replied, honestly. "I only just found out about it this evening."

Ms. Nguyen nodded at my reply. "Interesting, and what, exactly, is your feeling towards her?"

I knew it was a foolish venture to attempt to lie to Ms. Nguyen. I had never tried it before and I wasn't about to press my luck with her at all. "I've had a crush on her ever since we met, ma'am." I answered. "I know I'm only fifteen and you probably think I'll have no idea what I'm talking about, but I really love her and I would never do anything to hurt her, ever. Val means the world to me!"

Ms. Nguyen's eyes widened at my admission. "Love?" She repeated the word as if feeling it out. "Love. No, Mal. I've seen the way you are with her and I had guessed as much. So I ask you this:" and a small smile crept over her face. "What took you so long?"

I relaxed a little, a sigh of relief coming out as a nervous chuckle. "I was afraid, ma'am."

She nodded at me, still grinning. "My Valarie has quite the reputation, I hear." She chuckled a little herself as she referenced Val's reputation as the most feared girl at school. It had earned her the nickname: _The Enforcer_. "Mostly, because of her friendship and love for you. She cares a great deal for you, but you already know that."

"Yes, ma'am."

She reached a hand out to me, and I, without hesitation, took it. She patted it affectionately with the other hand. "If there is anyone that I would want my little girl with, it is you, Mr. Grant." She said, her expression one of subdued elation. "Your mother will be pleased. We've long been contemplating getting the two of you together like this."

I smiled, feeling the heat rush to my cheeks. "Yeah, I think she will be too."

Ms. Nguyen nodded. "Now, I would tell you that I hope you will treat each other well and with respect, but I know the two of you well enough to see that as a - what do you kids call it - 'a done deal'?"

I nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

She smiled wider. "Good." She nodded. "Now, you get yourself home, young man. I'm sure your mother will want to hear all about it. I'll see you in the morning." She let go of my hand and made a playful shooing motion with her own.

"Yes, ma'am." I said excitedly. "Good night, Ms. Nguyen!"

She wheeled herself backwards, away from the threshold and placed one hand on the edge of the door. "Good night, Malak. Be safe." And she gently closed the door, leaving me standing out in the light of the setting sun.

My hands curled into fists and both punched the air at once! "YES!" I almost shouted to the sky above me. I began to run towards home, entirely too excited to walk at all. I wanted to tell my mom all about what had happened and how unbelievable it felt.

Not only did I tell Valarie that I was in love with her, not only did she love me back, but her mother _approved_ of us together.

Best. Birthday. Ever.

I was halfway down the block now, the euphoria of the evening fueling my steps as I pushed my feet faster and faster, until I felt like I wasn't running on the ground at all. I felt as if nothing could hold me, not the earth, not the sky, not gravity itself.

Rounding the corner was a car that had other intentions.

I don't remember who was in the car, if they were male or female. I only remember that, by the time I had noticed them, they had just began to turn to face the windshield. By that time, they were almost on me.

My thoughts were moving at a million miles a second, and the loudest of them, as I felt time slowing down around me, shouted: _Not now! Please, if there is any justice in the world; do not let me die right here, right now._

The next thing I knew, I was careening through the air and over the car. I didn't stop. My feet were still moving as if I were running on air and my body…

My body had just shot upwards about a hundred feet.

I remember handling that as best as I could.

Read that as me freaking the fuck out, because that's pretty much what I meant.

I came to a slow stop, in midair, above a group of magnolia trees not far from my house. I could actually see my house from where I was as I struggled to stop, moving my arms and feet wildly, trying to find purchase on something, anything!

Then came the slow realization of what was happening. An odd kind of calm came over me, as if there were someone rubbing my shoulders and whispering in my ears, I could almost hear it.

_Take it easy. You know what this is. It's as natural as walking. You just need to believe it so._

I raised a hand above me and focused on moving upward. My body obeyed, floating a foot or two higher.

_Okay, good. What's next?_

I moved my hands slightly forward and focused on moving that way, my body then following my mind's directions in the same way.

_You see? Easier than breathing. This is part of who you are now. This is your awakening, kiddo. Take it and run with it._

I felt my eyes widen, as I looked below and struggled not to panic. Heights hadn't been my favorite thing before, but now I felt as if this were the most natural and safe place to be. I looked around, suddenly afraid of anyone else seeing me like this…hovering over the trees.

The voice in my head caught on to that as well.

_Move, buddy._

I shot both hands into the air and I rocketed out and into the sky, laughing and whooping with the excitement of my newfound…gift, power, ability? Self-propelled flight was something I had always dreamed about, but this was…it was…

Better…so much better than I could have ever imagined it.

Imagine being in a pool, completely submerged and surrounded by this cocoon of water all around you. Now replace the pool with the sky and the water with the air as you cut through it like a missile.

"I CAN FLYYYYYYYYYY!" I screamed as I shot through the clouds, maneuvering as if I was an old pro. As if I had been doing this for years, lifetimes even. I dove through the clouds and towards Lake Ponchartrain scaring the seagulls away from their post-perches and skimming my fingers against the surface of the water. I moved my hand and stared at my reflection as I flew over the waters, the euphoria turning into pure and unadulterated joy.

I shot up into the air again, corkscrewing through the clouds, coming out of the other side feeling as if I had just run through a sprinkler set on mist. I laughed at myself as I back flipped through the air, watching as the birds flying nearby squawked in confusion and irritation at my punching through their formation.

"Sorry!" I laughed as I brought myself to a stop above Ponchartrain Park. I watched as the people below went about their own lives, oblivious to the flying teenager above them. I aimed myself back towards home and launched myself in that direction. My thoughts began to invade my happiness and I began to fear.

What was happening to me? How was I able to do this? Was there anything else I could do? Was I dangerous?

What was I?

I landed atop the roof of a small bank in the area and rubbed my hands across my head in a panic. Do I tell someone? Who do I tell? Who _could_ I tell?

Valarie, I could tell Val.

No, because she would accidentally let it slip to her mother and then I'd never see her again. Ms. Nguyen would certainly think I was some kind of freak. It was enough that so many of the kids in the neighborhood did, but I didn't want that from her or especially Val.

I suddenly found it hard to breath, and had to sit myself down and force myself to try and stay calm.

Stay calm? I just learned that I could freaking FLY!

What would Mom and Dad say? They'd put me back up for adoption. They have my sister Cait now, they didn't need me. They didn't need some freak making their lives more complicated than I needed to be.

_Dude, what are you saying? Are you seriously listening to yourself, right now? You know Mom and Dad love you, and Cait will be over the moon. They might freak out about it at first, but, honestly, you could not ask for better parents than the ones you got! Right?_

I pulled myself together, not realizing that there had been tears falling from my eyes until I felt them splash against my hands. I logical part of my brain was right; Mom and Dad had risked so much when they, an Englishwoman and a Scotsman, decided to adopt me; a little black kid they had found in the park sitting underneath an old oak tree.

They loved me, they didn't care about blood or my skin color; I was their son.

I stood, slipping the hood of my jacket over my head, and took a breath, watching the last of the day's light fade from the horizon. I would hear about my lateness for sure, but there would be more important things to discuss.

The memory of kissing Val slipped into my mind again, and I felt myself warm. In a movement that felt a lot like taking a step onto a podium, I stepped into the air and soared towards my home.

It was a nice home, in a decent enough neighborhood: two story, red brick, decent back yard that I hated mowing on the weekends.

It was…well…home.

I made my approach and decided to land in the backyard, where no one would really be able to see a boy in a hoodie shooting down from the sky and landing on the lawn.

I started to descend when I noticed a pale little red headed girl a couple of years younger than I was, sitting at a small table underneath the porch light. It looked like she had been reading one of her mystery novels again before dinner, I smiled, then remembered where I was, hovering just in front of a large magnolia tree. I did my best to descend as quietly as I could so as not to attract her eyes.

It was only my luck that she happened to look over in exactly my direction just as I was a few feet from the ground.

"Hey there, Mally'," she spoke, using the nickname she had given me when she was two. "Mom is inside, you might want to brace yourself for…a…um…" Her eyes went wide and she stood from her seat and backed into the table, her mouth agape, an uncertainty in her face. "Why…why are you floating like that?"

I stuck my hands in my pockets; a nervous, automatic reaction of mine. "Caitlin, I need you to take a breath and not freak out." I said, as calmly as I could. "Everything is fine, kiddo."

She cocked her head to the side, her expression telling me that she didn't quite believe me. "If everything is okay, why are you _floating_?" She looked over at her novel. It looked like one of those ghost story/mysteries that had a tendency of keeping her awake at night. "Are you…are you…" I could see the fear growing in her face. "Dead? A Ghost?"

I sighed, floating over to where she stood and landing on the grass in front of her as quietly as I could. "Cait, if I were a ghost, would I be able to do this?" I pinched her arm and poked her in the cheek.

Her eyes went wide and she threw her arms around me. "Don't scare me like that, then, Mal!" I put my arms around her as she breathed hard into my shoulder. She pulled away, suddenly. Her eyes were narrowed as she looked me over. "Wait, you were floating…hovering…what does…"

I nodded, putting a finger to my lips. She got quiet and nodded as well. "I can fly, Cait."

Hey eyes went as wide as I had ever seen them and I backed away from her and hovered upward a few feet, reaching for a Magnolia blossom and plucking it from the tree. I descended back to the grass and handed it to her. She studied it intently for a moment and I could almost see the thoughts churning in her head. "But…since _when_?" her voice was bordering on either panic or excitement, I really couldn't tell.

I put my hands out and in front of me to get her to keep quiet. "Since this evening, about an hour ago. I'm not sure how I'm doing it, only that I can." I looked towards the back door. I knew what had to come next. I just wasn't sure that I was ready, but I had already made up my mind and I had to follow through. "Cait, I need you to do something for me?"

She nodded, her face still a picture of astonishment. "Anything, big brother."

"I need you to get mom and bring her out here, tell her that I need to talk to her. Tell her that it's important." I backed away and behind the magnolia tree.

I could see my plan register in her head. "You sure about this?"

"No." I answered. "But I don't want to keep this from her, either."

She nodded and went through the screen door. I willed myself into the air and hid behind the leaves of the tree, doing my best not to hyperventilate.

The door opened against few seconds later and a middle aged Caucasian woman walked out, she wore a T-shirt and jeans, not the more dressy attire that she normally wore to the university where she taught. She was barefoot and didn't look pleased at all. Her hands were at her sides, fingers flexing about.

My mom was one of those British women who looked as if she belonged on one of those Monty Python films or, better yet, one of those adaptations of Shakespeare that Hollywood kept producing. Her blond hair was long and curly and usually wore long, but tonight it had been tied back into a kind of messy ponytail of sorts. "Malak!" She called out, her thick British accent ringing into the yard. "Where are you and do you have any idea what time it is? I was beginning to worry, young man!"

I gulped and took a deep breath. "I'm here, mom." I watched as her eyes darted to my direction. She raised an eyebrow.

"What? In the tree?" She asked. "What in hell are you doing up there?"

I closed my eyes and steeled myself. "There's something, I have to show you, mom. Something you need to see and I'm not sure how you're going to react, but I would like you to stay as calm as possible."

I saw her face suddenly go from questioning to worry in the space of a heartbeat. "Are you alright, son? Did someone hurt you?"

I smiled a little. Always worrying about me, my mother. "No. I mean, yes, I'm fine…I think."

"You think?" I could hear her trying to mask her fear with feigned irritation. "Well, are you or aren't you, Malak?"

"I'm going to show you something, mom, and I just…I need you to stay calm." I pleaded, then remembering who my mother was. "Well, as calm as you can, at least. Please?"

She gave a quick smirk and a resigned sigh. "If I promise to 'be calm', will you get your arse down and show me whatever it is that's so important?"

"Yes."

She nodded, putting her hands behind her back. "Okay then, I promise."

"Seriously."

She tried not to chuckle, but it came out anyway. "Mal, I'm supposed to be upset with you. Now, come down here now or else I will be."

I nodded to myself. "Okay." And I floated out from behind the tree so that she could see me, hovering a full ten feet above the ground.

Her expression changed from one of barely kept together amusement to absolute shock as her eyes grew wider and wider. Her mouth opened and moved as if she was trying to form words, but nothing came out of them at all.

I did my best to try and not panic, even though my heart beat out a speed metal rhythm in my chest. I took a breath and spoke. "Mom" I said. "Please say something."

Caitlin came back outside then. "Mom, it's weird, isn't it?" she said. "But it's kinda cool, too."

That made me smile a little, but the expression on my mother's face remained. "How?" was all that she could say.

"I don't know, mama." I admitted, wanting so very much to go to her to hug her and assure her that I was still her son, still the same boy she raised into a young man. I stayed put, exactly where I was, ringing out my hands as I floated there. "It just, well, happened."

There was silence for a moment, and then: "Are _you_ alright?"

I blinked at that for a second, I hadn't expected that. "Um…yeah." I said tentatively. "I'm a little scared, though."

She narrowed her eyes. "Why? Of What?" her voice felt so distant, so detached.

I looked down at my feet, the fears overwhelming me. "That you would think that I were some sort of freak. That you and Dad would send me away because you didn't want me anymore because of…well, this." I gestured at myself. "I don't want you to send me away." I could feel the tears falling now, the quiet sobs causing my shoulders to shake. "Please."

I looked up at her to see her turn to Caitlin, "Sweetheart, I need you to go and call Dad." She said, as calmly as she could. "Call Dad and tell him to come home, right now." She squeezed Cait's shoulder with her hand.

Cait looked up at me, there was fear in her eyes then. "What do I say if he asks why?"

"Tell him it's about Mal." Mom answered. "Go. Now."

Cait tried to give me a smile to let me know that it would be alright. I wasn't sure if she, herself believed that, but it was sweet all the same.

Mom looked at me next. There was uncertainty in her face; as if she was trying to find the right thing to say, or anything to say at all. "Are you able to come down?"

I nodded, not able to speak without bursting into sobs.

"Please do so, then. Quickly, " She gestured the motion of moving down with her hands, "before the neighbors see."

I floated straight down, landing on the soft grass and stood, staring at her.

She walked over to me, slowly, without saying a word until she stood in front of me. She reached her hand up towards my face and I just knew that she was going to hit me; strike me down and cast me out and tell me that I was no longer her son.

But that didn't happen.

Instead, she grasped at my hood and pushed it back off of my head to look at my face. I looked away. I didn't want to see her fear turn to rage and hate the way that I was afraid that it would.

But she touched my chin as gently as she could manage, and brought my face so that I was looking at hers.

And she smiled at me.

And she pulled me into her arms and held onto me as I sobbed into her shirt, wrapping my arms around her waist, inabe to contain the swell of emotions I had been bottling up. "Oh, my sweet, sweet boy." She murmured, kissing my forehead. "I simply don't know where you'd ever get the idea that your father and I would ever send you away to anywhere, but you are wrong." She stroked the back of my head. "We love you so much, Malak. You are our son: maybe not by blood, but in our hearts we are a family. That's what matters." She gently pushed me away so that she could look at my face but held on to my arms. "Alright?"

I nodded, wiping the tears from my face. Clearly, it was a crying kind of day. "I love you, Mom."

She smiled at me, her wide goofy grin. "And I love you, you silly hooligan."

She put her arm around me and led me to the table where Caitlin sat before and nodded for me to sit, pulling the other chair around as I did so that she would sit next to me. "So, tell me what you can remember. I want to know everything, love."

About fifteen minutes later I had finished telling her everything; about Val, about Ms. Nguyen, everything.

Of course, leave it to my mom to focus on the wrong thing.

"So, you and Valarie!" she smiled sitting back. "Well, I can't say that I haven't been waiting for this since the two of you were children."

"Ms. Nguyen pretty much said that." I replied, already feeling better about the whole situation.

"OOOOOOHHHH!" Cait sang out from her seat next to Mom. "Mal is in Loooooooooove!"

Mom shot her a glance that would have killed a bear. Cait sat silent, trying her best not to laugh and gave me a wink. I tried keeping my composure but all I could do was laugh at her.

Mom, never one to miss out on a good laugh followed suit. "You two are impossible." she said, trying to calm herself. "I hope, I really do, that the two of you will hold on to that humor."

After another fit of the giggles, she put her hand on mine. "Do you love her, Mal?" She asked me. There was a quiet sincerity to her voice. It was a question that she had asked before, time and time again.

I nodded, and I could feel a grin growing. "I think I always have, mom. That's the insane part." I looked from her to Caitlin and back again. "I think I had this feeling for her before I could understand what it was."

She cupped my cheek in her hand. "Then she is a lucky young woman, I think. To have a man so in touch with his heart is a rare thing. I'm pretty sure you learned that from your father."

I beamed, thinking of Dad. Of all of the men I knew in my life, he was my emotional touchstone. He was the biggest bleeding heart I knew and always had been. "Did you really get together when the two of you were in school?"

It was a rare thing to see my mother blush, but she was as red as I had ever seen her. "Those were heady days, Mal. Oh, your father was such the romantic."

"He still is!" Cait chimed in.

Mom smiled. "He is at that." She looked at her watch. "Speaking of, the man will be home any minute." She stood, tapping my sister on the shoulder. "Get washed up for dinner, the pair of you." She turned to me, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze. "We'll talk to your father about your gift after, right? Oh, and we still have to celebrate your Birthday, late as it's going to be."

I nodded, suddenly realizing how hungry I had been. "Yeah."

She pulled me into another embrace. "We'll figure this all out, what this means, as a family. You'll see." She kissed my cheek, patting it as she pulled away. "Now go on, get your books inside and get washed up as well, hm?"

I grabbed my backpack and took the stairs two at a time, stopping midway to turn and get another look at her. She stood there, smiling up at me with that goofy wide-eyed smile. "GO!" She laughed, shooing me off.

I launched myself up and flew over the banister at the top of the stairs. The happiness and euphoria returned as I floated into my bedroom and threw my bag onto my bed.

I counted myself ridiculously lucky to have been found by my mom.

Best. Birthday. Ever.

* * *

I blinked the tears from my eyes and let the rain wash them away. Standing there in front of her headstone, I wondered if she'd have been proud of what I'd become, of who I was trying to be. I knew that Dad was, as he told me so regularly.

She'd been buried there, at Lafayette cemetery No.1 after the cancer finally took her just past my freshman year of college. I remembered feeling helpless and angry at myself, at my powers for not being able to save her. I wondered often if I could have saved her if I had, then, the Magic that I now possessed.

Dad had always said that thoughts like that would drive me crazy.

They did keep me awake occasionally, so he wasn't wrong there.

"I've been standing here, mom…" I said, to her stone. "…remembering Valarie, and remembering you. Remembering your kindness and your compassion, your hugs and that goofball smile of yours." I sniffed, trying hard to hold the tears at bay. "I could really use some of that, right about now." I tried to smile, but it only pushed more tears from my eyes. "I love you, and I miss you." I knelt, gently placing the lilies, her favorite flower, just below her stone.

**Dr. Jessica Louise Grant**

**1956-2001**

**Loving Wife and Mother.**

I stood again, shoving my hands into the pockets of my black greatcoat, noting how some things don't go away with age. "Happy Birthday." I whispered to the stone. I stood there, a storm of emotion brewing inside of me.

I'm not sure how her favorite song suddenly came to my lips, but I found myself singing them anyway, no one in that necropolis to listen but me, mom, and the rain.

" _Moon River, wider than a mile_

_I'm crossing you in style, someday_

_You dream maker, and heartbreaker_

_Wherever you're going_

_I'm going your way…_

_Two drifters off to see the world_

_There's such a lot of world to see_

_We're after the same rainbow's end_

_Waiting round the bend_

_My huckleberry friend_

_Moon River and me."_

I exhaled slowly, my eyes still leaking and the rain still washing them away. "I'll try to visit again soon." I said, still staring at the stone.

"I'm sure she'd love that." A familiar voice spoke, freezing me in place, my eyes going wider than they had in a while. "You still have such a beautiful voice." The woman's voice was cracking, as if she were fighting tears as well.

_It can't be…not after all this time…_

I raised my head slowly, knowing what I would see, but still not believing it. Wearing combat boots and a black long-coat that was very similar to my own except for it being quite form fitting; like the kind you'd see in an old Noir film or comic. It was buttoned all the way to the neck and her collar was pulled up, presumably to keep the back of her neck warm, though the rather large, black hood that she wore over her head would have done that well enough. I couldn't see her face, as it appeared that she was looking at the headstone stone and the edge of the loose fitting hood obscured it from sight. Her familiar dark brown, curled hair hung from the inside shell of the hood and had begun to cling together in the rain.

I could feel my heart hammering in my chest as I waited, needed for her to speak again.

"I'm so sorry." She said. "I knew that she had been sick, but I couldn't…I didn't know that she had…" She slipped a hand from her pocket and pulled a blank handkerchief out with her. She dabbed at a space underneath the hood and then stuffed the handkerchief back into her coat's pocket.

I wanted to say something, wanted something to come out of my mouth. The most I was able to manage was simply; "Val?"

She lifted her head and my heart stopped. From her rounded jaw to her slender, yet full lips, painted a succulent shade of black, to the nose I had kissed countless times, that terracotta skin…

Stars above, she even smelled the same.

Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses, which she slowly lifted a slender hand to remove. My eyes went wide as she revealed the pair of intense eyes I had stared into more than I would ever be able to regret.

Except that they had changed since we'd last seen each other, on the day that she had disappeared from my life, not long before mom had died. The brown of her irises had been replaced by a deep and piercing scarlet surrounded by a ring of a color that resembled Amber. The field of white once surrounding it had also been replaced by a black that glimmered in a way that resembled obsidian.

She looked at me and gave me a wistful smile, a smile that could and did bring every feeling I had ever had for her bursting back to the surface.

"Hello, Mal."

_To Be Continued…_


	2. Welcome Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mal's childhood sweetheart, Valarie Amari returns and is much different than the girl he had last seen towards the end of his freshman year in college. Where has she been? What has she been up to? Why is she back? What's with her eyes?
> 
> Most importantly: what does this mean for our Wizard: Mal?

We stood there at my mother's grave, locking eyes as the warm Louisiana rain fell on us both. I could see Valarie's scarlet eyes searching mine for a sign of recognition, or, maybe, an emotional response. Her expression was sad, almost pained that I hadn't yet said anything.

In all honesty, I couldn't think of anything _to_ say. My head was overflowing with questions and my heart, well, to say that there was a storm of emotions roaring inside of me was an understatement. I'd prefer to have likened it to a supernova wiping out a small solar system, but I'm afraid that might be a bit on the extreme side of things.

She took a deep breath and managed a smile, albeit a tentative one. "You look good, Mal." She said, her voice cutting through me and waking me from all of my internal explosions. "The dreads really do suit you." She raised an eyebrow. "Not sure how I feel about the beard, though."

I suddenly found myself touching my own face and feeling the close cropped beard that I had allowed to grow there and ignoring the thin dreads that hung past my shoulders. After all this time, she could still make me feel like a self-conscious teenager. "I rather like it." I said, trying not to sound defensive at all. "My students say it makes me look like a legitimate professor."

Her eyes went wide at that. "Students?" The word seemed to feel foreign in her mouth. "You're a teacher now?"

I nodded, suddenly forgetting what to do with my hands. "Yeah." I near-mumbled. "High-School."

She smiled. "I didn't see that coming at all. I figured you for a scientist of some kind, like an Anthropologist or something, with your analytical mind and all."

I nodded, shoving my hands deep into my pockets. "Yeah, well, you know - best laid plans and all that."

She nodded, taking a deep breath as she rubbed at her arm with the other. "I didn't know if you'd recognize my voice, or not."

I smiled as warmly as I could. "Val, I think I could recognize your voice anywhere."

She laughed silently, shaking her head to try to hide the red blossoming on her cheeks. "Always the romantic, you."

My face warmed and I found myself looking at my shoes. Damnit. I looked up again to find her eyes studying me. "Looks like I'm not the only one with the unique eyes anymore." I commented.

She turned a bit redder this time. "Yeah." She started, fumbling with the sunglasses in her hands. "That's true, but your eyes still do it for me." She gestured at me now, her smile a bit more relaxed, more familiar.

I thought on my eyes, the reflective pools of silver that had, for all intents and purposes, no visible pupils; just solid irises that got more stares and more comments in my youth than I could remember. I started wearing glasses during my sophomore year of high-school as a way to draw attention away from them, or, at the least, play into the idea that they contributed to my "poor eyesight". It worked, mostly.

Val, however, never forgot about them. She always said that she loved looking at them, knowing that her reflection would always be what I saw. I smiled at the memory and she smiled wider for having seen that.

We stayed that way for a little while, just smiling at each other in the rain, until something snapped her out of her gaze and her expression changing to one that was a bit more serious. "I imagine" she said, her voice low and a little apprehensive "that you have questions."

"Literally, all of them." I answered immediately as I struggled to calm the ponding in my chest.

She nodded her acknowledgement, slipping the sunglasses back onto her face. "Then I suppose we should get out of this rain and find someplace…"

"There's a Starbucks a couple of blocks down the street, if you recall." I interrupted. "Corner of Washington and Magazine. I used to work there…after…"

"Yeah." She answered, quietly. I could hear the guilt in her voice.

This was going to be interesting.

I gestured toward the sidewalk and she nodded, moving towards the gate of the cemetery as she adjusted her hood. We walked a few feet before she turned to me finally. "How long has it been since you've been back?" She asked.

I took a moment to consider that. "Couple of weeks, I think." I answered. "Friday night Movie night with Dad; _Fiddler on the Roof._ "

We walked through the gate and turned onto the sidewalk, walking down Washington Avenue towards Magazine St. Val giggled, suddenly. "I had forgotten about those." She needlessly adjusted her hat. "I think the last one I remember going to was _Gremlins_."

I did my best not to show my surprise at her memory. "Yeah, that's right." I replied with a smile. My thoughts were going crazy now, I had no idea how to talk to this woman anymore, and it had been so long. There was so much I wanted to say…needed to say. I suddenly felt my mouth go dry and I lost the ability to link words into coherent sentences. I fell a couple of paces behind as I tried to stumble through the battlefield of my thoughts.

I could tell that Valarie noticed that, as she took her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. "So, how _is_ David doing these days?" She asked, breaking the awkward silence between us.

"Dad's good." I answered, picking up my own pace and aligning myself beside her. My thoughts were suddenly focused again and I could think clearly, thinking of my dad. "Finally has his own theatre." Valarie turned to me and her eyes were wide, happy, but almost surprised. "He bought out the Prytania about a year or so ago and he's been running small independent plays from it since then. Still does ' _Rocky Horror'_ every Friday, though." I smiled, the warmth in my chest growing as I spoke of my Dad. "I'm really proud of what he's accomplished after 'Katrina'." I continued. "Sky's the limit with what he can do with it all."

"Wow." She beamed, looking forward again. "That's amazing, Mal. I remember him working at that when we were kids." We approached the corner and she suddenly stopped, tensing up a bit. She stood there, staring at the glass door.

"You alright?" I stopped at the door to the Cafe with her.

She nodded. "I just…I didn't expect to feel this way." She nervously stroked the long and curly hair flowing from under her hat.

I frowned with confusion. "What way is that?"

She shook her head. "I'll be fine once I have some coffee in me, then I can explain everything."

I opened the door for her and nodded. She smiled shyly at me ( _goddamnit_ there's that smile again, ugh! What is she _doing_ to me?) and walked inside. Ignoring the jackhammering in my chest, I walked in behind her, taking care to not notice the familiar switch of her hips, or the way that her curly hair bounced and swayed when she walked. I did my best to ignore the twinge of heat that her every movement seemed eager to ignite in me.

Damnit, I had missed her. This wasn't fair, her coming out of nowhere when I wasn't prepared.

We found ourselves a small table, just large enough for the two of us. "This reminds me of our Senior year." She mused. "Going to _Rue De La Course_ after school and doing homework, or playing one of the board games, or discussing…well, the thing…"

I nodded, recalling that I had eventually, because I loved her and wanted to spend my life with her, told her about my powers and my secret identity as the _Black Hood_. It had gone better than I could have imagined.

A lot better than it would with Rachel, nearly 6 years and some change later. I felt the sting of that pain suddenly, it had been quite some time for me, but having that wound poked still didn't feel all that great, let me tell you.

I shook the thought from my head, choosing to focus again on the time I went around in a hoodie and a scarf under then name _Black Hood._

Look, I didn't come up with that name, alright? It's what people on the street just started calling me, so don't give me that look. It's not like I get to choose what people call me these days, I still don't know where the hell _Windwalker_ came from.

"Yeah…" I felt my face warming as I removed my long-coat and flung it over the back of my chair. I took a moment to straighten the wrinkles out of the cyan button up I had worn and looked back to her. "We'll get to how _that's_ going in a bit." I pulled out my wallet. "What would you like to drink, V?"

"Mal, you don't have to." she protested, setting her clutch on the table and giving me a hard stare as she unbuttoned her own coat, revealing the red satin blouse she wore underneath. She kept her hood on, though. I found that curious for a moment, but kept myself to the task at hand: Coffee.

I held up my hand and waved off her protest. "It's okay. I want to, Val." I saw her set her jaw in that way she would when she insist on something, sometimes threatening violence if she didn't get her way. Not that she would have actually hurt me or anything, just maybe a punch or two on the shoulder.

I looked at the tightening of her jaw and was struck with the urge to kiss her up the line of that jaw and continue over to…fuck! There I went again. Calm thoughts, Mal. "You've got no say in this one." I said with a blink, not backing down. "What would you like?" I asked a second time.

She sighed, another battle lost to me. The long lost feeling of victory surfaced and it almost felt as if she hadn't disappeared from my life over a decade ago. "Grande coffee. Black. Three sugars, please."

I nodded. "Got it." I said. "Back in a bit."

We'll skip the tedious waiting in line and angst-filled thoughts and the whole ordering of the coffee business. You all know how that works and you don't really care about that process anyway.

I returned to our table and placed the porcelain cup of coffee in front of her. Her hand went for it and our hands touched. It was nice…awkward, but nice. We looked at each other for a moment, no one moving, her fingers still lightly touching mine. There was a laugh, I'm pretty sure it was me and I, not really wanting to, slowly pulled my hand back. She grasped the coffee mug and pulled it to her, taking the included stir stick within her fingers and just staring at it, bottom lip between her teeth again.

I sat opposite her, and stared at the table for a moment, completely ignoring the Chai I had bought, the feeling of her fingers on my had burnt itself into my brain and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I had to get a hold of myself, but she was right in front of me and she smelled so good and looked even more beautiful than I remembered. It was killing me. I closed my eyes and took a slow, deep breath. I could do this. I just needed to get my head in this thing and figure out what to do with my feelings later. I took hold of my drink and took a long sip, letting the hot spiced drink warm my system and wake me out of my mental insanity. I nodded to myself. I could do this.

"So," she spoke first, tentatively stirring the coffee with her stir-stick with one hand and removing her sunglasses with the other. "I would imagine that you'd like to know what happened, and where I've been all this time." She looked up at me from her coffee, her doe-like, scarlet tinted eyes bore into me with a kind of sad longing that echoed my own.

Shit.

Be cool, Mal. Let's see where this goes.

I nodded, putting my cup on the table in front of me. "Yeah, I think that might be…prudent." I answered. I thought back to our freshman year of college: we had both decided on different universities but kept our relationship strong despite the distance, or so I thought. My abilities allowed me to fly up to Boston to see her on the weekends and get a good look at the area we were both planning to settle into once school was done for the both of us or I could figure a way to easily transfer schools out that way.

Towards the end of the year, however, things became strained as she became more distant. My friends back at Xavier U. seemed convinced that there had to be some other guy (Or girl. Could have easily been a girl. College was a time for self-discovery, right?) in the picture and that she was pushing me away to make it easier for me when the eventual breakup commenced and she went on to whoever it could have been.

I didn't buy that and confronted her about it when I went up to see her that last time.

"Do you remember when I told you that I was going through some… changes?" Valarie said, snapping me out of my memories. "You came up to see me and I tried my best to put you off and not see you at all."

I looked away, remembering the sting of that night. "Yeah, I never forgot it." I said quietly. "You didn't seem like yourself at all, now that I think about it. It freaked me out a little. And then you told me that you didn't want to see me anymore and that you just couldn't be with me, that it was too much." I could feel the prickle of tears in my eyes and fought to push them back. Fuck. Don't get emotional yet, Mal. Hear her out first, then get weepy.

Priorities.

"Yes." She said. "Except that it wasn't the truth."

I turned to her now, my eyebrow raised and my interest piqued. "You told me that you didn't love me anymore." It was hard not to make that sound accusative, I'm not sure I had pulled it off, to be honest.

She shook her head at me. "I lied to you that night." She said, her face pained with what looked like genuine regret. "I never stopped loving you, Mal. I felt like I had to say those things so that you wouldn't try to follow me." She looked out of the window at the rain falling on the concrete. "I needed you to not follow me. You couldn't go where I was going despite how badly I wanted you to."

I nodded. "I didn't listen."

She chuckled, looking back at me. "Yeah, I guess I had forgotten how stubborn you are. I don't know why I thought that would work."

I remembered the words she spoke, how she had run out of the park we were meeting in, and how I tried to follow her. She ran into an alleyway and then…

"You vanished…" I spoke, starting to put the pieces together. "That should have been impossible." I remembered standing there in that small space. No doors or windows to speak of, there was nowhere that she could have gone. She couldn't fly like I could, either. Unless… "You weren't alone, were you?"

She blinked at that. I guess she didn't expect me to put two and two together. I'm pretty sure that if I didn't know all of the things that I that I did now, that I wouldn't have been able to recognize…

"You went under a cloaking spell." I muttered, fingering my oversized cup. "Only, you couldn't have learned that kind of magic in such a short time. Illusory spells are unstable in the best conditions…"

I caught myself when I saw her face, the stare of utter disbelief there that said that I had some explaining of my own to do.

"Yes?" She hesitantly continued. Her expression hadn't changed at all. "There were things that I had learned about myself, about my family; my father, in particular."

I listened intently, my mind moving at a hundred miles a second as it tried to piece together all of my memories of that time and fit them with what she was telling me.

She closed her eyes as if she were only just surrendering to the idea of telling me what she hadn't all those years ago. "You see…the thing is…" She looked at me and frowned. "Goddamnit, Mal!"

I sat up straight, confused. "What?" I asked. "What is it? What'd I do?"

She sat back and made a teepee out of her fingers, peering at me over the tips, her hood casting a shadow on the upper half of her face. "You're sitting there, looking like an older, more attractive…definitely sexier you!" She looked away. "It's fucking distracting and I'm trying really hard not to just fling this table aside and pounce on you." She took her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down, as if it would help

I looked away from her, watching the rain fall on Magazine Street and doing my best not to move the damned table out of the way for her myself as the knowledge of what that could lead to filled me with a heat that I struggled hard (forgive the pun) against. "Do you honestly think this is any easier for me, Valarie?" I asked, just above a mutter. "I wasn't sure I'd find you at all, but you appear out of nowhere, looking like you stepped out of a damned Noir film my inner dialogue should be narrating: 'I didn't know she'd be there, at the cemetery, but there she appeared. She was all long legs, strikingly gorgeous eyes, and a smile that men would murder for. Hell in combat boot is what she was.'" I looked back over at her, half glare and half inescapable need in my face. "How in the however many Hells there are am I supposed to have any kind of defense against that, Val?"

" _Find_ me?" Valarie asked. Her face was a mix of confusion and hope. "You were looking for me? _Actively_ looking for me?" She asked.

It was my turn to shake my head now. "We'll get to all of that later." I took a sip of my Chai, watching the frustration form on her face. "You were the one telling _me_ a story."

She pursed her lips at me, sitting back in her chair. "Fine." She said with a deliberate enunciation. "I was talking about my biological father, right?"

I nodded. "You had just mentioned that you had learned something about him, yeah."

"Right," she leaned in. "I had learned that my father wasn't human." She said.

Then she waited, her eyes darting from me to her coffee cup and back again.

I sat there waiting for more of the story to unfold. "That can't be it." I said, after a minute or two of intensely awkward staring. "I mean, there's more, right?"

She cocked her head to one side, confused. "This should be the part where you look at me as if I have two heads." She slowly sipped her coffee, her eyes still waiting for the response she clearly expected.

"Who am I to point fingers, Val?" I took another long sip of my Chai. "I'm not human either."

She blinked at that. "Wait, what?"

" _Your_ story."

She nodded, rolling her eyes at me. "So my father, apparently, made some kind of blood pact with a…well, a Demon to save my mother when they were younger. The demon agreed, served my father, and then collected on the pact. It transformed my father into a Balor and then conscripted him into a kind of servitude for a time, before he and my mother escaped and came here."

I put my Chai down for that, moving my left hand in a series of concentric circles while my fingers wove a dance of their own. There was an audible _crackle,_ then a _pop_ , and then silence. "So you're saying that your bio-dad was a _fire demon_?"

She looked around, noticing the silence and then looked at me. She leaned in, an intense scowl on her face now. "What on earth did you just do?" She asked, her voice a harsh whisper.

I sat back. "You don't have to whisper." I picked my Chai up and took another sip. "I just cast a bubble of silence around us." I explained as I set my cup down again. "These people couldn't hear us even if they were practically on top of us."

Valarie's eyes widened. "You're a spell caster?" She asked, cradling her coffee cup in her hands.

"Wizard, actually. Now, stop interrupting yourself and finish the story." I gave her a smile to show that I wasn't upset, just interested in her finishing her story.

She scowled. "You're the one that interrupted me!"

"Potato-pot-tah-to-fire-demon." I teased, motioning for her to continue.

She gave me a glare that said: _Fine, but you have some explaining to do, buddy!_

"So to make a long story short-like; thanks to the demon blood in me, I had my awakening during our freshman year. Nearly burnt down the student center when it happened. The person that was waiting for me in the alley was another half-breed who went to school with me there. He'd felt my awakening and made it there just in time to stop the fire from getting out of control. He helped me with learning about my demonic heritage and took me to a place where I could learn to control my abilities. Faerie." She stopped, again appearing to expect a reaction of disbelief. When I simply nodded and smiled, she sighed and continued with her story.

"While in Faerie, I studied Magic with a demon-Mage-hermit…"

Now it was my turn for my eyes to go wide. "Kalizephron?" I exclaimed.

Val's eyes soon followed suit. "That, of all things, surprises you. You _know_ her, I take it?"

I nodded. "She's a personal friend to one of my mentors."

"So that means that you were also in Faerie!" She exclaimed, the excitement lit up her face. It sobered just as suddenly. "But, I never knew you were there. When? How long?"

I took a breath. I guess it was my turn now. "So I had _my_ second awakening about a year ago, close to my birthday…"

She raised a hand to stop me there. "Waitwaitwait! _Second_ awakening?"

I laughed, forgetting about that bit. "Yeah, the first one was the day I learned about my 'natural abilities'."

"The day of our first kiss." Val smiled, her cheeks starting to redden. Her fingers went to her lips as she appeared to be remembering that day.

I nodded, my own face growing warmer. "In the process I accidentally shifted myself through the veil and into the Ishkall wilds, not far from the Celesti border. I was, well, rescued by Queen A'Shaara herself, along with her entourage, and brought back to this plane."

Val's eyes went wider. "So, wait, you actually met _the_ Queen of the High Elves?" She took a sip of her coffee. "Shit, Mal, that's incredible!"

I nodded, taking a sip of my Chai. "Oh, it gets better." I set my cup down on the table. "A week or so later, I get a visit…from, if you can believe it, Mr. Tokishiro."

Valarie nearly spit out her coffee. "Our history teacher?"

I nodded. "His real name is K'un Luan D'un." I explained. "I haven't figured out what he is, but he isn't human, I know that much for certain." I scratched my chin. "He told me that I possessed a great affinity for magic and that it was imperative that I learn the Arcane arts. His actual words more more to the tune of: _'It is your great destiny, my former pupil!'_ "I did my best impression of the older Japanese man.

Valarie's look of surprise matched what I assumed was my own when I had learned of this myself. "So you went with him."

I recalled the day that he appeared in my mind. I was, obviously, in a state of shock and disbelief, not buying into anything he had said.

But he mentioned the Elf Queen and her convoy, showed me his own magic and told me that I had the potential to be greater than he had ever been. "He told me that I could be a greater help to people once I had mastered the art." I took a finger and pointed to my cup on the table. I moved it in a swirling motion, focusing my will at it as I did. The cup lifted about a centimeter from the table and began to rotate, matching the circling of my finger. As I slowed the rotation of my finger, the cup began to slow as well, lowering itself to the table and silently settling on the faux wood. "How could I say no to that?" I looked at Valarie now, her eyes met mine with a kind of wonder I hadn't seen since the night I had told her about my natural abilities. "It was the start of Summer break for the school, so I left with him that night."

"So," Val began, taking hold of her own cup again and palming it. I could see the steam begin to rise from the cup and then a few tentative bubbles up from the bottom. "You spent the summer with him in Faerie."

I folded my arms. "Yes and no." I answered. "As you know, time moves differently here than it does there." She nodded her agreement. "I initially studied under A'Shaara; she taught me the Shamanic and Druidic magics. She's my Godmother, by the way."

That bit of knowledge nearly sent Valarie out of her chair. "You're kidding me!"

I shook my head at her, receiving only a gaped mouth as a response. "Once my training was done with her," I continued "I was taught by Queen Titania; learning some of the older illusory and elemental magics as well as War and Battle magics from the head of her royal guard. I journeyed, afterward, to the mountains of Making, also called the "Singing Mountains", where I met up with K'un again; he taught me the ancient magics of the true Weaving and of the Naming." I took a sip of my Chai as I remembered those times, how easy and bone-shatteringly hard that time was for me. "After that, I journeyed across Faerie for some time, had a few adventures here and there and made it back to this side of the veil just before the end of August. Though, going by the time that passed for me while in Faerie, I was there for about 87 of my years…give or take."

Val's mouth hung open. "Good grief, Mal." She readjusted herself. "So you don't age either?"

I shook my head. "Not since my twenty-seventh birthday, thanks to my regenerative abilities." I winked. "Remember those?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "You mean do I remember all of the times you freaked my out by stabbing yourself through the hand with a screwdriver, or getting involved in that gang fight that one time and coming through my window full of bullet holes and covered in your own blood?" She narrowed her eyes at me. "Yeah, I might have some recollection of that ability."

"Point made, Val." I said a bit sheepishly.

"So that makes you…"

I took another sip of my Chai. "As of last month, I'm one hundred and twelve years old."

Her eyes went wide as she scanned me up and down…a couple of times. "She smirked in her mischievous way. "Well, you are the _sexiest_ old man that I've ever met."

I set my cup down and leaned in a little, trying hard not to blush. "Well, it can't be very different for you either, I assume. You've spent a fair bit of time there as well from the sound of things." I looked her over as well. "I can also assume that, being a half-demon, you also have a touch of the 'oh look I'm immortal' gene."

She placed her own coffee on the table now. "On an off, sure, but not that much time." She said as she leaned back, looking out of the window. "I'm only 75 this year." She announced.

"So a little less than two months of our time total, then?" I queried.

She nodded. "I came back the first time after I had gotten word that you had given up looking for me." She said. She looked hurt, and I could see the memory of her heart breaking in her eyes. "I didn't think you would."

I sighed, feeling my own heart break along with her. "No, I loved you, entirely." I said to her, earning a glance from the window as well as a slow smile. "When you left, I turned the world upside down trying to find you - twice. When I stopped looking it was because I couldn't find you at all, because I figured that you didn't want to be found at all, not by anyone…especially not by me." I felt that pain again as the memory burst through and overwhelmed my emotions, and nearly pulled my feet up to my chest and buried my face in my knees.

She turned back to the window. "I'm sorry." She whispered.

"If it weren't for your mother getting a glimpse of you in the French Market a few days ago, I wouldn't have known that you were back at all." I said, feeling the regret at making her sad.

Her head snapped back to me, her eyes wide and full of questions. "My mother?"

I nodded. "About three days ago, Ms. Nguyen called me. She said that she needed to talk, and that she knew that I was the Windwalker…"

"I knew it!" Val exclaimed, thumping the table, she smiled wide and I was just able to make out the elongated canines hiding behind her full lips. "I'd been hearing stories and listening to people talk about you. It sounded very much like your 'M.O.' but I wasn't sure."

Well, alright then.

I put out my hands, gesturing for her to calm herself. "Your mother basically blackmailed me into coming here to see her without telling me why." I continued. "When I did arrive on yesterday, she told me that she had seen you in the market, but that you had looked different, as if something had changed you." I nodded. "Clearly she had no idea just how true that is, but that's beyond the point."

Val sighed. "I hadn't meant for her to see me." She said. "Whenever I look in on her, I try my best to conceal myself in shadow or, at the least, wear a better disguise."

"It was your smile that gave you away." I told her. I remembered the look in Ms. Nguyen's eyes, the sadness that she was so close, but so distant; and yet there was the happiness that Val was alive and in town after all this time. "She knew you the moment you smiled." I smiled at her.

She smiled back at me, a tear rolling down her cheek. "I've been looking in on her for a while, making sure she and the house are okay."

"She misses you, Val." I told her. I reached across the table without thinking and took her hand from around her coffee cup. I held it, gently, thumbing her knuckles. I looked from her hand to her face and I could see the look of longing in her eyes. I concentrated on her hand and how good it felt, almost losing myself in it. "She wants you to come home." I said, finally. I nearly continued with _I want you to come home, too, with me…_ I kept my mouth shut.

Val shook her head at me. "No, she can't know what I am, Malak." She took her free hand and put it on top of mine now, sandwiching it between both of hers. "She won't know how to deal with what I am: the daughter of a Demon." Her eyes met mine and the sadness in them was a punch to my stomach.

I sighed. "She knows what I am and I'm pretty sure that it doesn't matter." I told her. "She says that she still sees me as a future Son-in-Law, after all of this time. She knows that I still…" I stopped myself then. Not daring to say the words that my heart had been screaming at me from the moment I had laid eyes on her again.

Valarie tilted her head to one side. "So, you…you're not upset with me for running away?"

I raised an eyebrow at her. "I know, now, that you had your reasons but, yeah, I was for a few minutes today, sure." I said, still feeling some of the heat of that fading anger at her. "I really wish that you had confided in me about it. I can't really throw stones though. I kept my own secret from you for a year and a half before I finally caved."

She smiled, stroking my hand with her fingertips. "Why _did_ you tell me, Mal." She asked me, her face going serious with curiosity. "What in the hell made you tell me? Why trust me with that?"

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling of her hand on mine, of her fingers, caressing and stroking…ah! Stop it Mal! I opened them again, finding that she had moved her chair a bit closer to me.

Gulp.

"I loved you, Valarie." I said, looking into her eyes. "I wanted to spend my life with you. I couldn't imagine doing that and keeping this from you."

"And now?" She asked. She was moving closer. "What do you feel about me now, Mal?" Her voice was a dusky whisper as her hand moved up my arm and caressed the muscle there under my shirt sleeve. "Do you…still…love me?" Her eyes were hopeful, loving, and filled with longing and I'll be damned if I didn't feel all of that and more in the very core of me.

"Of course I do." I answered. "I never stopped, but so much has happened, Val." I started to reach out to her, to touch her face, but I pulled away. "I've been with other people. I've been engaged, Val. It didn't end well and the entire thing hurt me…pretty badly." I thought back to Rachel and the way she had run out on me when I had revealed my powers to her. The guilt and emptiness reared its head and I could feel the tears prick my eyes again. I could hear the names she called me, hear the door slam when she stormed out, feel my bare feet run across the grass before I launched myself into the air, a cry of anguish on my lungs.

I remembered coming back to the apartment a few hours later, finding Rachel gone - with all of her belongings. I remembered sinking to the floor, thinking _what could have made me think that this could have ever worked, that I could have this, that I could be happy?_

I felt tears fall from my face as I looked up again, Valarie staring at me, her face full of pained worry. "You told her, didn't you?" She sighed. "She couldn't deal with it, could she?"

I nodded, afraid of what might happen to me if I dared say anything.

"I'm not her, Malak." She said, her voice soothing and warm. "You already know that. You know that you can trust me with anything. We've been through all of that before."

I shook my head. "You'll leave again." I said, hearing my voice begin to break as the fear reared its ugly head again. "Something will happen that you can't tell me about, and you'll run again. How long will it be until I see you again then?"

She squeezed my hand, lifting it to her lips and placing a long and tender kiss against my knuckles. I felt myself go warm and cold all at once at the touch of her soft lips against my skin. "You won't have that to worry about, because I'm not going anywhere." She caressed her face with the back of my hand, a warm smile across her face. "Do you think I have any intention of losing you again, now that I've found you – now that we've found _each other_ all over again?"

I sighed, but couldn't help the smile on my face or the warm feelings in my chest as she reached her free hand to my face and caressed my cheek. I covered that hand with my own and rubbed her fingers as gently as I could. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again, Val." I murmured, bringing her hand to my lips and kissing her palm.

Val smiled wide. "I hoped." She answered me, nuzzling her cheek against my hand, her eyes met mine and there was a simultaneous heat that flashed inside of me that I could see reflected in her.

"Are you doing that to me?" I asked, sheepishly. "Getting me warm like that?"

She giggled into my hand, her eyes wide with mirth. "Hell, I should hope so!" Her grin was wide, like when we were children, excited with the notion that anything could happen when we were together. "So…" She started, leaning in closer to me. "I was thinking that we should, perhaps, go and see my mom…"

"So that you can get the tongue-lashing that's been over a decade coming?" I interrupted, trying to suppress a giggle at the thought.

She rolled her eyes at me, but I could still see the fear in her eyes. After all this time and revelation, a half-demon fire Mage was still absolutely terrified of her mom.

On second thought, that was pretty well deserved on Ms. Nguyen's part.

"Yes. Yes." She groaned, a faked exasperation in her voice. "I'll go and get chewed out by mom, maybe even your dad, I'm sure he has some choice words for me as well."

I laughed at that. "Quite possibly, yeah."

"But afterwards…" She moved in closer, one of her long fingers now caressing my bearded chin. "how about we go somewhere and discuss what happens next?"

I felt the desire in me rising and my eyelids grew heavy with it. I had a feeling that there was very little actual 'discussion' on her mind at the moment. "I think I like this idea." I answered, moving my freed hand in a series of motions that ended with what sounded like a tinkling of tiny pieces of glass falling to the floor.

She smiled at me, understanding that I had undone the sound bubble surrounding us. "Show off." She crooned moving closer to me and wrapping her arms around my neck. I pulled her to me by her waist, pressing her body against my own, feeling the curve of her breasts against my chest and the slope of her hips in my hands.

I smiled at her as she moved her face closer to mine. "Devil Woman." I teased.

"You shut up." She said, as her head tilted and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, still moving closer. Her eyes were closing…

"You make me." I whispered, my lips just barely grazing hers…

"Valarie Genevieve Amari!" Came a voice from behind her.

I groaned and rolled my eyes. "Damnit! I should have known something like this would happen."

"Fucking hell." She hissed, as she lowered her head onto my shoulder. Crap, they had said her whole name.

I looked over her shoulder. There were a group of men and women, I counted five of them all together. They were all dressed in suits and all carried various forms of foci ranging from Staves to Wands to what appeared to be a set of enchanted brass knuckles. I looked back to Val. "Friends of yours?"

She stood, turning around to face the group, but not before letting me see the flash of flame light up her eyes. Maybe the name rule didn't work on demon blood, I wasn't sure; new territory here. "No." She spat. "A crew of retrievers, fucking errand boys!" She adjusted herself to a fighting stance.

I stood as well and moved beside her, settling into a relaxed fighting stance as well. My hands moved into my familiar spellcasting mudras: pointer, pinky, and thumb extended on each. I imagine I looked like a not-at-all-Chinese Bruce Lee in that pose. I didn't mind. "And they want..?"

"You are to come with us, my Lady." The lead stooge spoke. He stood at about my height, his blond hair cut in an undercut style, his dark glasses was supposed to make him look cool and menacing, they only succeeded in making him look like a bit of a tool. "The Lady of Clan Ifrit should not be seen commiserating with mortals." He spoke, saying the word _mortals_ as if it were a curse word.

"Um…" I began. "Lady?" I gave her a sidelong glance.

She sighed, bringing her fists up to a defensive position, her eyes still glowing dimly underneath her hood. "Yeah." She started. "There may have been one or two things that I neglected to mention to you a little bit ago."

The leader of the pack removed his glasses, revealing a pair of angrily burning red eyes.

Well, fuck.

_To Be Continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so what's with the Men In Black rejects and what do they want with Valarie?  
> Wizards?  
> Half Demons?  
> Starbucks?  
> Genevieve???
> 
> Find out what happens next in Chapter 3: "Enjoy the Silence"
> 
> (Hey there! Thanks for sticking around through chapter 2, I seriously hope you all enjoyed this. Please comment and let me know what you think or ask questions if you'd like. Thanks and I'll see you at the next chapter)


	3. Enjoy the Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mal and Valarie's reunion is interrupted and they are forced to face off against the Demon retrievers sent after her. Who are these people? What do they want from her?  
> Why do these creeps look like a wacky demonic Boy Band?  
> Most importantly: What lies in store for the future of Mal and Val's relationship?

 

 

 

 

 

        I could almost feel the heat coming from _Thing One'_ s eyes as he looked us both over, taking an extra moment to attempt to stare me down. 

        "Look," I tried to reason with him. "There are people here. This is a public place, full of mortals." I gestured at the cafe patrons as they looked on in confusion and horror. Some of them seemed to think that this was some kind of staged act as they started to retrieve their phones and take video. Great. "Mortals with _cameras_ built into their phones. We don't want to cause a scene here, just walk outside with us and we can deal with this like rational adults and not like crazy demon-children."

        That earned me a glare from Thing One and, before I knew what had hit me, there was a bright flash of pain and I was flying into a group of bystandards as they attempted to make their way to the door, a blazing hole in the center of what used to be a nice shirt.

        This, boys and girls, is why I can't have nice things.

        The skin beneath my wreckage of a shirt crackled and hissed as it began to heal itself, albeit slower than normal.

        Great, slow healing meant that this was a kind of Arcane fire, likely an invocation. So I was likely dealing with Mage-fire or, since demons were involved, fiend-fire. Either way, my magical ability to heal from any injury would be slower against magic itself. Yippie!

        "Ouch." I hissed, regaining my footing and helping the couple I had knocked over get back on their feet. "Are you alright?" I shook my dreads from my face. If one lock had been singed, so help me....

        I got a short nod from the gentleman. His girlfriend, however, looked as if she were going to break out in full panic-mode at any moment, and that wouldn't be good for anyone here. "What's happening? Who are they?"

        I shook my head at the pair of them. "No time for any of that. Get out of here and get as far from this building as you can. NOW!" The male grabbed onto his girlfriend or wife or whoever she was to him and hurriedly made their way out of the door. "That means all of you!" I shouted. "This is not a drill!" I stood straighter so that everyone could see the hole burned into my shirt and my singed skin still healing. "Unless you want to get hurt, you all need to GO NOW!"

        The patrons and even the staff seemed to take that to heart, immediately making for the door as quickly as possible. When I turned back to Val and Thing One, he had moved forward a couple of steps. Valarie had her hands out, palms facing out towards him, fingers moving slowly. I could see the heat rising from her hands in a way that reminded me of seeing a mirage and watching the heat waves hovering just above the pavement.

        "I don't care what he says, I'm not going back there!" I could hear her saying as I walked back over to her side. 

        Thing One's expression was stern. "My Lady, it is not up to you. Your husband _demands_ your return and I will obey him."

        _Husband?_ Well, this was...well...shit!

        "You can tell Alvarez that I have no intention of returning to him." Val spat, her own eyes glowing a deep scarlet. My eyes went wide with the realization of who she was referring to. "And he is _not_ my husband. The ceremony isn't for another week, by his own order, mind you; and, if you hadn't noticed by now, I _clearly_ don't intend on going through with it."

        I cleared my throat, loudly, getting the attention of the boy band in suits as well as Valarie. "I'm sorry, can you excuse us for a moment, Resivoir Dogs?" I turned to Valarie, not caring to see the reactions of the retrievers, as she called them. "So, I'm guessing that this husband was one of the things you neglected to mention?"

        She looked at me for a moment, then back to the Furious Five, eyes narrowing. "My father, apparently, arranged for me to marry an Abyss-Lord as part of the bargain he had made for power before I was born.” She spoke through her teeth, the anger clearly boiling in her. I’d seen Val angry before when we all thought she was human: Not. Pretty.

        This was damned scary...and also...kind of hot?

        HA! I see what I did there.

        "And he chose Alvarez, the Inquisitor?" I questioned, my eyes wide. " _Seriously?_ "

        Alvarez, as I had read a long time ago, was a high level Abyss-Lord. He was called the Inquisitor because of his ruthless and often excessively brutal methods of torture and information extraction. Mostly, though, he did it for shits and giggles.

        He was also the youngest in a set of 7 brothers and 3 sisters, one of whom I tussled with some time ago, back in Faerie. Awesome.

        Demons: because why settle for one, when you can collect the whole set?

        "Can we do this later, Mal?" She asked, her face registering her being as less-than-thrilled about the entire situation as I was. "Kinda got _this_ thing going on at the moment."

        I reached out with my mind to our table behind us, searching until I found my coat laying across the back of my chair. I nudged at it with my thoughts. _Wake up, buddy. kind of need you right this second._ I felt it awaken, the netherweeve alert to my call.

        "Fine." I said, casually reaching my hand to the table. The coat melted into deep black shadow that slithered down the chair and acros the floor until it reached my feet. It quickly climbed my leg, solidifying as it did so, until it had completely wrapped me in it and had formed a hooded coat/cloak/robe around my body. A red scarf appeared, wrapping itself around my head, just below my eyes. As the hood solidified, a bit of the scarf tore itself away and framed my eyes, flowing and shimmering into a pair of red glassed goggles over them. I turned to Val and pointed a now black gloved finger at her. "But you owe me ice cream and a new shirt."

        She stared at me for a moment in my, well, I guess you could call it a uniform, and raised an eyebrow. "Netherweeve?" She queried.

        I nodded. "Netherweeve." I spoke, allowing the scarf to augment my voice so that it sounded like a chorus of voices speaking as opposed to leaving it at my own.

        For everyone playing the home version of this game, Netherweeve is a pretty impressive and rare bit of cloth created using an old Goblin magic which pretty much grafts a living shadow to a spool of fabric. Once he ritual is completed, the fabric is psychically bonded to the wearer, who is able to mentally change it to meet whatever needs there are to be met. Cold out and need a coat? Done. In need of a nice scarf? No problem. Capes? Easy!

        The only thing seemed that it couldn't do well was shoes.

        We were still working on that one.

        "Impressive." She commented. "Though I figured you in more red than this."

        "Hey, the scarf and goggles are red enough." I smiled on the other side of the enchanted scarf. "But thanks. I thought so too." I said as my right hand moved in a frantic blurring motion, signing mudra after mudra and twining the threads of the weaving together as quickly as I could.

        New Edition from Hell seemed to be growing a bit more agitated now, as Thing One frowned in my direction. "My Lady, I don't know who this _person_  is, but I have my orders to..." He was interrupted by a large golden fist made of solid, fiery, light slamming into his chest, knocking him back and into his fellow Men In Black impersonators. I could see the smoke rising from where the fist had struck him as he struggled against his brethren to get back up.

        I turned to Val, who gave me her trademark "Really?" look. Eyebrow raised, lips pursed as if she were about to give me a good telling off, or, at the very least, call me an idiot.

        I pulled my fist back, opening my fingers so that only my thumb, middle, and ring fingers were still closed. The _Fist of Horus_ from page 235 of the _Tomes of Thoth, book One,_ sped back towards my hand on it's glowing, ethereal chain and then dissipated back into the golden glowing ring of ancient script, burning in the air and spinning in a set of concentric circles as it reached me. "What?" I said, innocently as I snapped my hand closed again. The circles in front of my hand stopped spinning and promptly vanished the moment I made a fist, not even leaving an after image. The wonders of Magic. "Oh, _him_? I owed him that one. That was one of my favorite shirts!"

        Thing one struggled back to his feet, his hair was askew and his four cronies glanced from him to me in that nervous _what the hell do we do_  way. The funky bunch all backed away as "Marky Mark" straightened himself out, glaring at me the entire time. "You dare!?" He spat.

        I took a step forward, my gloved finger pointed directly at him. "Look, man, I tried to do this peaceably, tried to take this away from the mortal populace and bring this someplace where we can talk, _sensibly_." I fired back at him. "But NO! You had to hit me with _fiend-fire_  you trigger happy son of a harpy! What, were you a cop in a past life or something?"

        One of the Backstreet boys, a woman with dark red hair pulled back into a ponytail and two dark nubs sticking out of her forehead, stepped forward. "Mortal, you overstep yourself." She said, her bassoon of an Alto shook the floor. "This is none of your concern, leave now before further harm comes to you. Your tricks will do you no good here."

        Tricks? Well, that's just damned Rude!

        I extended my hand out in a gesture that conveyed the need I felt to hold off on any more violence. "Can we just settle down and talk a second? I feel like..."

        Thing Two took that hand with a speed that rivaled my own and flung me through the street-facing window and onto Magazine street. I was able to use my own speed to quickly roll in mid air and land in a crouching position while glass from the window fell and shattered around me. 

        This was totally going to be on the news tonight, and I was going to hear about it from Dad later, I just knew it.

        I began to stand when the door and the remaining window was blown out in a blast of flame. I steeled myself against the force of the blast as it slid me backwards a couple of steps and into a parking meter. I felt it give way to my weight combined with the force of the explosion, the metal groaning as it gave under me. 

        Thing One stepped through the space where the door used to be just as I was righting myself. "We've given you the chance to comply, My Lady." He spoke, as the rest of 112 gathered behind him, the largest of them, a Solomon Grundy-looking piece of work, had Val by her arm. She struggled what she could, but the brute squad clearly refused to let go. "Now, you get to watch as your costumed trickster dies before we bring you before our lord."

        Okay, olive branch officially told to fuck off. Message received, Slappy.

        I took a deep breath and looked Val in the eyes. There was something of an acknowledgement there as she nodded, allowing the large black hood to fall back and onto her shoulders, and I looked down to see her moving her hands furiously. Her eyes grew bright with the fire of her birthright inside of her and I could see her hair moving, seemingly of its own accord.

        The pair of foot long horns appeared where her hood and hair had been concealing them, curving up from where her brow met up with her forehead and arcing over and out, like an elaborate omega symbol. She grinned a great devilish grin at me, her short but visible fangs in full view and her eyes were wide with anticipation.

        There was my girl, the woman I loved more fiercely that I had dared remember. Focusing on that feeling, I pulled my will into one cohesive thought as my own hands started to work and move in front of me in a circular motion while my fingers moved furiously, pulling strands of the weaving to me and focusing them. I felt the static on my arms and the hairs of my skin stand on end as the spell began to manifest. "Yeah, about that, asshole..."

        Thing One's face became an expression of ridiculous 80's action movie arrogance. Think of that blond jerk that kept giving Daniel Larruso such a hard time in _The Karate Kid_ and you'll get what I mean.

        Just what kind of television did they watch in the Abyssal lands?

        "You still think you can stand against us." He stepped forward and I could see the fiend-flame ignite his fists. "You amuse me, human. Tell me, by what name are you called?" He smirked, his eyes blazing more fiercely now. "I will regale my master with this tale of your pathetic attempt."

        I smiled wildly beneath my scarf. I could feel the power crackling across my skin now, and the sting of it as it moved against my teeth. "Two things, sulfur breath: One. I'm not human." I raised my left hand, like a claw, to the sky and rotated it slowly. I could see the world darken around me as the black storm clouds that I knew were already nearby began to circle and bind themselves together above us. "Two." I heard the roar of thunder above me. "I'm called the Windwalker."

        Thing Two and Solomon-Grundy exchanged a look. It was a look that told me that they knew that name. It was a look that said that, if they lived through this, they would both find new employment. Thing One roared at me, thrusting his hands out to throw the fiery balls of demonic death at me. In the same moment, I could see Val blast Solomon-Grundy-Thug in the face with an odd looking blue-colored flame from the palm of her free hand. The Thing let her go, attempting to step back and away from her. In quick twist of her hips, a thick terracotta toned tail shot out from underneath her coat. It wrapped itself around the ogre's neck and slammed him, face first to the ground. In a bright blue burst of flame, she was at my side. By that time, I had extended my right hand to all of them, my fingers spread enough to easily point at each of the Brat-Pack. 

        With a quick movement of Val's hands and fingers, the flaming balls of doom were in her hands, thankfully, instead of burning their way through my torso. The glare in Thing One's face noted a surprised sort of rage that was the extra feather in my...well...hood.        

        I could feel the tickle of static arcing across my body and every little hair on my body began to stand on end. I smiled wide and sharp, feeling the electricity moving across my teeth, aching for release. "Boom." I whispered, letting go of the invisible reigns I had held on the forces I had stirred, feeling it pour out of me through my left hand and feeling it focused and channeled by my right. 

        Blissful, electric chaos descended from the clouds in lightning form, striking the five members of the Crazy 88's and sending them flying in all directions. I watched as the Lightning slammed them all into the ground and nearby cars. After a moment or two, the Lightning disapated and what was left of it trickled and danced along my fingertips. I heard Val take a sharp breath and looked over to her to see her standing next to me, the fireballs still in her hands. "V?"

        She shook her head at me. "Got this..." She took a deep breath. "Just...a second..." I watched as she concentrated, staring intently at her occupied hands. After a second or two, I saw the balls of flame begin to shrink into the space just above her palms. Her hands were glowing red as the flames flowed into her fingers.

        "You can absorb the fire." I said, mostly to myself. 

        Val shot me a quick smile but went right back to focusing on her task. Within a few seconds, the flames had totally blended into her skin. I could see the veins in her hands and fingers glowing like embers after a bonfire, or veins of lava after a volcanic eruption.

        "Babe?" The word was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I felt myself warm suddenly, my heart resuming the pounding in my chest. "You okay?"

        Her head shot up at me, the flames in her eyes were dimming, but I could see the wide smile on her face. "I didn't think..." She inhaled deeply, clearly worn out by the act. "...I'd ever hear you call me that again." She giggled. "Feels better than I remembered." She looked around her, as did I. The gang of five were unconscious and a collection of onlookers had gathered, all of them with their phones out and recording. I could hear the sirens in the distance, and a fearful glance from Val told me that she had too. "We need to get out of here. Is there anywhere that we can go where they won't be able to find us?"

        I walked over to her. "Just one at the moment." I answered. "Nice tail, by the way." I winked at her, forgetting that she couldn't see my eyes through the goggles.

        "You, shush!" She gave me a mock glare as I scooped her into my arms and she wrapped her arms around my neck.

        "You trust me?" I asked, looking over at her face.

        She looked into my...er - goggles, her smile was...well...nothing short of a balm. "With my very soul." She answered, her voice nearly a whisper.

        Damn the stars, I wanted to rip the scarf away and just kiss her.

        Instead, I smiled, despite knowing that she couldn't see it. Tilting my head to the sky, I pushed off of the ground and launched the pair of us into the air, flying through the whirlpool of storm clouds that immediately followed behind us after a quick whisper from me. She whooped with a surprise that soon became gleeful laughter as she held my neck tightly. 

        We quickly soared over the uptown area, the thunder clouds still swirling behind us until I found my target, a relatively decent sized two story home on Prytania Street.  With a whisper, I released my hold on the thunderstorm and felt the clouds spread and bloom over the city. The thunder crashed as we touched down in the back yard near the "L" shaped pool, and Valarie jumped a little in my arms, clinging to my neck as I gently set her down.

        "Where are we?" She asked, looking around franticly. "Are you sure they won't be able to find us here?"

         I walked toward the back door and touched the wood paneling with my hand, feeling the energy of wards and concealment spells thrumming within. "We're someplace safe, don't worry. They won't find us here." I focused on the energy within the house and synchronized my own to meet it. There was a sudden warmth within me, like a sigh being released during a hug, and I felt and heard the latches and locks on the door release. As I moved my hand away from the door, it slowly creaked open. I stepped over the threshold, feeling the warmth of the house as it accepted me inside. I turned to Valarie who stood watching the whole transaction with concern. "Come on in, Val. It's safe, I promise." I held my hand out to her, willing the netherweave to change again, it flowed and shivered around me until it formed my long-coat and clothing from earlier. She smiled at seeing my face again and took my hand, taking a tentative step into the house.     

         We stood in the kitchen of the house, for a moment, just staring at each other before the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder brought us back to where we were. I looked through the still open door to find that it had begun to rain pretty hard. I smiled and willed the door shut. "Can I get you anything to drink?" I asked moving toward the corner of the kitchen where I knew the hidden wine cabinet was stowed. 

        She shook her head, the ringlets of her hair going loose around her neck as they flowed away from her horns. "No. Thanks. Not just now." She removed her own coat now, holding it folded in her arms, pulling it against the red satin blouse she had just revealed.

         "You look a bit shaken-ish." I observed, taking off my coat and laying it atop the grey marble island in the middle of the room. "You okay?” 

         She gave me a bit of a tense smile as she mirrored me and set her coat on top of mine. "A lot's happened today." She moved over to the center of the island and took a breath, resting on her arms and elbows as she leaned over onto the smooth surface. "Shaken doesn't really cover it, Mal."

         I nodded my understanding, opening the nearby refrigerator and pulling out a couple of bottles of spring water. I set one down in front of her just in case she needed it. She smiled at the gesture and watched as I opened my own bottle and took a long gulp of the liquid.

         "So, where are we, exactly, Mal?"

         I leaned against the counter-top opposite her and nodded to the wall behind her. She turned and found herself facing a medium-sized framed photo of my parents, my sister: Caitlyn, and myself. It was one of those studio pictures that you take with the fake backdrop that they pull down on a screen. Dad and I had always hated those places, but Mom insisted.

         I was eighteen and still very, very short haired at the time. 

         It was the last picture we took together before she died.

         Val turned back to me, her eyes wide. "Is this...?"

          I nodded. "Dad bought it with the money he got for damages after Katrina. He did an amazing job restoring it, too. " I answered. "After I returned from Faerie, I decided that it would be a good idea to cover the property in as many Wards and protective spells as it would accept. Thankfully, it accepted a lot of them, so now it operates as a kind of secondary sanctum whenever I'm in town." I smiled, as I led her through the dining area and into the family room-slash-study. The room was full of brown tones and leather couches and a leather armchair I had gotten him for his last birthday. The walls were either covered in bookshelves or pictures of our family over various points in our lives. It smelled of Scotch and old cigars and leather and I didn’t care. It was my favorite room in the house. "I come and stay here whenever I come to visit, which isn't as often as Dad would like, and way less than Cait, for sure."

          Val was looking about the room, her hands behind her back, fingers fidgeting with the fabric of her skirt. I gulped as I made note of the split that went up to the middle of her thigh and the way that the fabric clung to her hips. _Damnit, Mal. Calm down, you're barely back into getting to know her again and you're about ready to contemplate in what direction and how far across the room in that direction you want to throw her dress. Chill. Out._

        I closed my eyes and took a long and deep breath. When I opened them again, Valarie was leaning against the back of the couch, a look of concern on her face as she looked me over. "Are _you_  alright, Mal?" Her tail twitched back and forth, nervously. 

          I nodded, desperately trying to keep my mouth from salivating at the thought of her. I cleared my throat and took another breath. "Just trying to think of our next move from here." I lied before I took another swig of water from the bottle and set it down on dad's writing table. 

        She nodded her acknowledgement. "Right." She near mumbled. “Hang on...Where’s Cait? Does she still live here?"

        I shook my head and gave a short laugh. "No, Cait's in D.C. She's been working for the Secret Service for the last couple of years."

        Val's eyes widened again. "Woah!" She breathed. "Time really does pass before you know it. I remember when she was just a lil' bit of teenager hanging around us a bunch. Washington D.C., huh?"

        I pulled my dreads back into a high set ponytail behind my head. "Yeah, she seems to like it. Of course she can't really talk a lot about what she does, but she's still alive and happy, that's what matters."

        She nodded her agreement and a silence fell over the house as we stood there, our eyes looking at each other and avoiding each other all at once. The thunder rumbled low outside and the rain crashed onto the house like a thousand shards of broken glass.

        "So, the obvious question..." She began, turning her head towards the covered window.

        "This engagement, betrothal, _husband_...thing." I interrupted. 

        She sighed, clearly not intending this to be the topic we started on. "I said it earlier, Mal. I'm not going through with it, I never intended to."

        I nodded quietly, pushing myself away from the table. “You mentioned that to Boyz to Demons back there."

        She rolled her eyes at me. “What is it with you and the Boy Band analogies?"

        I shrugged, grabbing the water bottle from the table. “They look like the boy band resurgence nobody asked for.” I took another swig from the bottle. “You’re avoiding the topic."

        She twisted open her own bottle of fizzy water now. “ _You_ distracted _me_ , stupid."

        I walked past her and stood in front of one of dad’s bookshelves, stuffed top to bottom with books on method acting and script writing. A couple of actual scripts sat on the shelf in front of me, worn from age and use. I stood there pretending to look at them all while my mind continued to reel from the insanity that was today. “So, what’s he like?” I asked without looking at her, my voice was a kind of mocking sing-song that even I hated.

        I could hear her turn to look at me. “Alvarez?” her voice was a mix of annoyance and disbelief.

        I turned my head to look at her as well. “Yeah.” I replied. “Unless there’s another monstrous, fiery, demon-lord that you’re engaged to marry?"

        “Ugh!” she exclaimed. "I don't believe this." She walked around to the other side of the couch and sat, resting her arm on the armrest and leaning her head back onto the leather cushion. “You’re angry at me for not telling you about him right away. Is that what this is?” she slapped the armrest as she crooked her head to get a look at me. “Seriously, Mal. What the fuck did you want me to say? 'Oh hi there, love of my life I never thought I'd see again. So not only am I a half demon, but I'm also in an arranged marriage to a demon lord that I absolutely don't love because I'm still insanely in love with you.'" She took a moment to catch her breath. I honestly couldn't blame her, good lord that was a mouthful. "Is that what you wanted, Mal? Will that fucking do?"

        “I don’t know, Val.” I walked over to the leather recliner across from her and plopped myself into it, grateful that dad wasn’t there to see me do that. “I’m still processing all of this too.” I leaned forward and sat the water bottle down on the coffee table between us. “I mean, you just saunter your way back into my life after all of this time…"

         “You were looking for _me_ , idiot.” Val interrupted. "I just,  _by coincidence,_ beat you to it…” 

         “After all of this time…” I continued, unfazed. “With your gorgeous face and you making me remember how much I loved you and how much it hurt the day you left…"

         “You think it was easy, leaving you like that?” she was in my face in less than a second, her eyes burning with an angry red fire. “Do you honestly think that I _wanted_ to leave you? You were the love of my fucking life, Mal, but I had to protect you and mom from me and all of the shit I didn’t know about who and what I am!” She backed away with a disgruntled “Ugh!” as she began to pace the floor. “I went to your mother’s grave to pay my respects. I didn’t know that you’d be there - I should have, though.” She stopped pacing and looked directly at me, shaking her head. “If I had known…maybe I wouldn’t have gone. I was _not_ ready for this, for _you_ , not by a goddamn sight, Mal.” There were tears in her eyes, now: angry, frustrated tears. “Was not at all ready for any of this. I was ready to leave again, start moving…and now…now I can’t, for the fucking life of me, find a single reason to go _anywhere_.” She wrapped her arms around herself and stared down at the carpet, a sigh that was more like a shudder staggering out of her.

          I stood, not knowing what else to do, and walked over to where she stood. I just stood there for a while and looked at her. I don’t really know how much time had passed before I finally took her arms in my hands and pulled her against me, letting her rest her head on my shoulder. 

          She sniffed once, maybe twice before she relaxed into me and I wrapped my arms around her, just holding her. “I wasn’t ready for this either.” I admitted, resting my head against hers. “I honestly didn’t think I was going to find you. Your mom got me to come here and got my hopes up and I wasn’t expecting any kind of payoff, you know?” I rubbed up and down her back gently as I spoke to her, though I wasn’t sure if it was to soothe her or me. “And then you just appear there, at mom’s grave and I don’t have the _slightest_ idea what to do. I had a speech planned out and everything."

          She half-sobbed, half chuckled into my shirt. “Of course you had a speech." She sniffed, and I could hear the soft smile in her voice. "You are still _you_!"

          I smiled, feeling my own tears welling up. “All I could think about was how amazing you looked. I had all of these feelings raging inside of me, trying to make sense of everything and then...you just smiled at me.” My hand was at the back of her head now, stroking her curls and twirling them in my fingers. “I tried to get over you and move on after you left, after I couldn’t find you. Hell, I thought I had.” She lifted her head to look me directly in the eye, then. Her expression was pained and anguished. “It just took one look at your face to know that there was no way that I could have stopped loving you, ever.” I moved my hand to her face, tracing the skin of her cheek with my thumb as she smiled at me. 

          “You are such a mushy fucking romantic.” She laughed, a tear falling down her face.

          I smiled wide at her, slowly inching my face closer to hers. “Yeah, but you love it."

          She closed her own eyes and began to lean into me, her full lips partially open, our breaths intermingling...

          And then the fucking phone rang.

          I looked at the clock on the wall and it took everything I had not to curse directly in Val’s face. “I’m sorry, I really do need to answer that."

          Val gave me a look of absolute confusion. “Um…why?"

          I grimaced as the phone rang again. “Because, if I don’t I’m going to hear all about it when I get back home."

          I ran to the phone and just about snatched the wall phone from the hook. “Yeah?" My voice was a it more curt than I had intended.

          “Well,” Julia’s voice smoldered through the line, her English influenced Irish accent gave just the slightest hint of posh indifference. “Someone’s a Mr. Grumpy wizard, tonight." So she had caught that.

          I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I know you’re just making your nightly check-in, Julia, but I’m kind of busy at the moment."

          Val gave me a curious look and gestured towards me and the phone. “Who’s Julia?” She mouthed, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at me.

          “So what’s so important that you’d rush your best friend off the phone?” Julia asked, her tone conveying a mock-hurt.

          I looked over at Val as she leaned against the back of dad's couch and I smiled, a warmth filling my chest that sent tingles throughout my entire being. “I...uh...I found her, Jules."

          “Val?"

          "Mm-hm." I answered.

          There was a pause. "Shit, Mal." She said, finally. "Where is she?"

          I leaned against the wall next to the phone. "Here." I answered. "Sitting on dad's leather couch."

          "The Corinthian?" She asked, genuine surprise in her voice. "Damn! That's...holy crap, man."

          "Yeah," I sighed, watching Valarie push herself off of the couch and walk towards the nearest bookshelf and pretend to look at whatever was up there.

          Cut from the same cloth, you say? Whatever would give you that impression?

          "Idiot!" Jules yelled into the phone. "What are you still doing on the phone with me? Go and talk to her, or make eyes, or spoon, or whatever it is you kids are doing these days. We'll catch up later, yeah?"

          I chuckled, my smile widening as Valarie's eyes locked with mine. "Yeah, definitely."

          And then, with a tone of warmth and encouragement that was, frankly, ridiculously out of character for her, Jules said. "Go get her, Mal." and hung up the phone.

          I gently put the phone back on the receiver, in shock by her words.

          "Who's Julia?"

          My head snapped over to where Val stood, unmoving. She held herself round her waist as she stared, blankly, at the bookshelf.

          I took slow steps over to where she stood, the butterflies in full chaos formation in my stomach. "Julia's my roommate-slash-best friend-slash-co worker."

          Val's face became thoughtful. "And she knows about what you are?"

          I nodded. "About as much as I know, at least. Yeah." 

          "Best-friend?" Her expression was one of confusion, her voice tinged with sadness around the edges. Shit.

          I gave Val as best a pleading look as I could muster. "You had disappeared, Val." I replied. "I was in sore need of a friend."

          "Was she..." I could see in her face what she wanted but didn't really want to ask. She closed her eyes as if to brace herself. "Did you move on...with _her_?"

          I did my best not to laugh at the question. "Oh Hell, not even a little bit, Val." I reached out to caress her arm. "Any inkling of that died after she tried to kill me...the night we met."

          Val's scarlet eyes went wide as she turned her head to me. "What?"

          "Oh, right!" I shook my head at myself. "Jules is a vampire." I explained. "She tried to drain me when we first met, but whatever I am makes my blood completely intolerable to her kind. She said that it practically set her throat and stomach on fire...well, after she vomited up what little of my blood she did manage to drink."

          I watched as Val's expression shifted from one of shock to one of an eerily elegant amusement. She chuckled as she shook her head at me. "Only you, would befriend someone who, only moments before, tried to kill you."

          I smoothed the scruff of my beard with my free hand. "Well, we didn't become friends that quickly." I replied. "She spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what was wrong with my blood and fixing it so that she could eat me later. She thought I had anemia for a while: bought me a cookbook for iron rich foods and damned supplement pills and everything...ugh!" I shook my head at the memory. "It was a pain in the ass!"

          Val laughed out loud then. "Okay, I definitely have to meet her now so that I can hear this story in full." She unfolded her arms and placed her hands on my chest. My heart leaped into a pounding frenzy, it felt like Tito Puente had incarnated himself into my chest cavity and decided that right now was the best time to show off one of his signature drum solos, using my heart as the percussive instrument of choice. I could see the smile forming on her face; angelic and electrifying all at once.

          I couldn't tell you how much time had passed before I realized that I had stopped breathing. I took in a huge gulp of air, taking a step towards her.  "So..."

          She bit her lip and looked away from me for a moment. "Given the day that we've had, and boy has it certainly been one..."

          I laughed. "Yeah, seriously."

          "I find that I am in direst need of a shower." She said, softly. "Would it be alright...?"

          My eyes went wide as the lightning flashed outside. "Yeah, yes, of course!" I scratched my head, nervously doing my best to not imagine her naked and in the shower; the hot water flowing over her curves, down her back and between her.... "Um...the bathroom is upstairs and two doors to the left." I pulled away, silently lamenting the moment my chest lost contact with her fingers as I walked towards the staircase. "Cait's old room is to the right of that. There has to be something clean in there that you can wear." I stammered, a sudden bashfulness taking hold of me and clenching my heart. 

          A hand reached out and gently took hold of my own, gently caressing my fingers. I looked up to see Val's face, beaming at me. "Thank you, Mal." She half-whispered, a light squeeze of my hand punctuating her gratitude. She began the walk up the stairs towards, I assumed, Cait's room and then the bathroom. I watched, my heart thrashing wildly in my chest, as she disappeared at the halfway point. 

          I blinked, standing start still for a moment, unable to believe the day I was having.

          Today, my very first love reappeared in my life after...well...years! I just couldn't...I didn't have the words to express every emotion that shot through me in those moments. I walked, in a haze, out of the sitting room and into the kitchen; my mind was awash with images, memories, sensations from our time together. I absently kicked my boots off and waved them towards the wall near the back door, stripping off my shirt and tossing it on top of them as I willed the door to unlock and open to the night's rainstorm. The lightning flashed as I walked into the rain just past the awning, smelling the ozone in the air just before the thunder rolled loudly. I could feel the air give out a slight shiver, as I rose a foot into the air channeling the static left over by the lightning and willing it into myself. I crossed my legs into a meditative seating as I hovered there, bringing my hands and fingers together into a meditative mudra A'shaara had taught me ages ago and, breathing deeply, let my mind wander into nothing.

          I wanted to clear my head, figure out what I wanted or needed to do next. I wanted to be free of my confusion and my desire for her for a few moments.

          But the only thing that I saw whenever I closed my eyes, all I could think about...was one particular day, during our senior year of high school.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

          It had been a warm day in April. Val and I had found ourselves in our usual after school spot: sitting atop the Central Branch of the Public Library. It was away from people, and in a place where we could easily see the New Orleans Central Business District. 

          "So, you never answered my question." Val had said, sitting cross-legged as she pulled her hair into a loose ponytail. She straightened the wrinkles in her yellow sun dress before regarding me with a raised eyebrow.

          I smoothed a hand against my, by this time, bald head. "I don't know, Val." I said to her, my voice as uncertain as I was. "It's not something I've really given a lot of thought to." I managed a bit of a smile as I placed the textbook I had been holding on the pavement next to me. I pulled my knees up to my chest as I looked over at her as she rolled her beautiful eyes at me. "I've been a bit...you know...pre-occupied." I gave her an innocent shrug.

          She raised her eyebrows at me. "Well, you're not pre-occupied now."

          "Yes I am." I replied, smiling at her. "I'm enjoying being up here, with you."

          She threw her book at me, knowing that my reflexes would automatically kick in and that I would snatch the book out of the air. I took a glance at the cover. Jane Eyre. "I don't think Ms. Bronte would approve of you using her works as weapons."

          "Against a boy with superpowers?" Val cut back with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow. "I think she'd make an exception, babe."

          My insides tingled, as they did whenever she used the endearment. I could feel the strain in my cheeks as the smile I couldn't control stretched across my face. My face warmed as the myriad thoughts skipped through my mind. 

          She knew what I was. I had told her, despite warnings from my parents, and she still loved me, still wanted me. 

          We had gone from best friends to...well, this: being in love, being in a working relationship, trying to decide what to do with our lives together...

          We were planning our lives together... _together_.

          "Earth to Mal!" she crooned, waving her hand in front of my face and snapping me out of my lovestruck haze. "Come in, space cadet!" she giggled, poking my nose and then kissing it softly. 

          I blinked, pushing my head forward and planting a quick kiss on her full, soft lips. "I'm right here, V. Not going anywhere." I smiled. "Promise."

          She shook her head, the red in her cheeks beginning to blossom. "Don't think you can escape the question, Malak Joseph Oberon Grant!" She poked me just under my chin. "I want to know. What do you think about when you think about the future?"

          I shrugged. "Honestly? I don't really have a great answer, Val." I stood, taking a step towards the edge of the roof. "I know that I want to continue helping people, whatever that means, but I also want to go to school maybe study literature and teach at a university like mom." I sighed as the thoughts poured into my head. "I want to be happy." I turned to look at her. "Marry you, travel the world, write a book, I don't know."

          " _Marry me_?" Her voice was little more than a whisper, but it carried the weight of surprise with it. "You want to _marry_ me?" 

          I pushed off of the ground and floated over to where she, now, stood; the breeze causing the skirts of her sundress to dance about her calves as she stood there, staring at me in shock with her arms wrapped around herself. "I pulled one of her arms to me and held her hand in both of mine. "Of course I do." I said, half laughing. "Sometimes I sit and imagine what our wedding day would be like...hell, I think about that a lot, honestly." I stared into her deep brown eyes and let my free hand wander up to her face where it cupped her cheek. "Val, there isn't anyone else I could see myself wanting to spend my life with." I took a moment to breathe, suddenly considering the possibility that this might not be what she wants. College was fast approaching and who knew how things might change. I knew that I could speak for myself, but telepathy was not one of the gifts I had developed over the years. I hadn't even considered that there might come a day when she didn't love me anymore. The thought terrified me and I could feel my heart begin to sink at the thought.

          Her eyes widened for a moment and then she closed them, allowing a soft sigh to escape her lips as she leaned her face against my hand. "Damnit, Mal." She breathed. "You really are the sappiest man I've ever known. Do you know that?"

          I let myself smile a little, the weight of my thoughts still pulling at my senses. "I might have some knowledge of this."

          "And let me guess..." She gave me a sly smile. "Judging by the look on your face, you're thinking up some fool notion of how you hadn't even considered the possibility that I might not love you anymore someday." She raised an eyebrow at me. "Or that this idea of marrying you wouldn't be something I even wanted."

          I blinked. "Okay, that's a little freaky."

          "This from the guy who decided to reveal his regenerative powers to me by stabbing himself through the hand with a kitchen knife, in _my_ kitchen?" Val pursed her lips at me, the hint of a cheeky grin edging the corners of her mouth.

          "Touche."

          "You remember how long it took us to clean up _your_ blood from the sink, and the floor?" She poked me in the chest with her free hand.

          I rolled my eyes a bit. "Okay, I'm sorry."

          "And my poor dress..." 

          "You were saying?" I laughed.

          She shook her head at me, the curly ponytail whipping back and forth. "There's the smile I love." She sighed. "You're an idiot. Do you know that?"

          I released her hand and pinched the bridge of my nose. "This thing with us, where you call me an idiot..."

          And then she punched me in the chest. "Listen, damnit!"

          I shut up. Enhanced durability be damned, I still didn't like it when she punched me...usually for good reason.

          "I love you, Malak." She said to me, matter-of-fact-ly.

          I started to say something, but she placed a finger on my lips.

          "I'd be lying to you if I told you that all of the things that you're able to do don't scare the shit out of me sometimes." She continued. "Seriously. There are nightmares, all about you being placed in a situation that your powers can't get you out of, or someone finding out who you really are and coming after me or my mom or your parents, even. It _terrifies_ me, baby. I _don't do_ terrified."

          I blinked a couple of times; I had had those nightmares as well, they kept me up most nights and I'd end up pacing the ceiling until I made myself tired enough to actually go to sleep. "I...I didn't know that, Val."

          She nodded her head in understanding. "I know you didn't, Mal." she took my hand again and gently caressed the skin of my knuckles. She spoke softly now. "Whenever you go out on your patrol, I'm left thinking about the possibility that you might not come back."

          I nodded as something clicked into place in my brain. "That's why you asked me to come by on my way home at nights." I looked straight into her eyes again. "To let you know that I'm okay."

          She looked away, her grip on my hand tightening. "After you crawled through my window the night you stopped that gun fight in the 7th ward I...you were covered in your own _blood_ , Mal. Your clothes were full of bullet holes!" She took a deep breath. "I know that you're indestructible, but what if you meet something that is actually able to kill you?"

          I could feel my heart plummet to my stomach. "That thought crossed my mind too." It really had.

          She turned her eyes to me again. They were hard and determined, focused and with a clear intent in them. I had seen this look before.

          It terrified me even more.

          "Can you promise me that nothing horrible will happen to you?" her brow furrowed as she took laser focus into my own eyes. "Can you, right now, promise me that every night you go out to fight and protect that you'll come back safely, or, more importantly, that you'll come back...period?"

          I stood there in front of her for I don't know how long. The silence between us was like a thick wall that I didn't know how to get around. I hadn't thought that she might have these fears, I couldn't have fathomed that she would stay up worrying about me the way she had just revealed. She didn't deserve that, she didn't deserve the insanity that was my life now.

          The thing was, I couldn't stop.

          I had a responsibility to the people that were powerless to protect themselves. As far as I knew, I was the only one out there doing what I was doing. No one here trusted the police, there was no one else.

          Just me.

          And all I was was an urban myth to the majority of this city, but I knew that what I was doing seemed to be helping.

          "No."

          Valarie blinked at me. A slightly startled expression on her face. "What?"

          I took a deep breath. What the hell was I doing? "I can't promise you that something won't happen to me. I can't promise you that someone won't find a way to kill me; hell, I'm lucky no one's thought to try decapitating me yet."

          "Okay." She breathed, the steel still in her eyes. "Would you...could you stop if I asked you to?"

          I shut my eyes tight against the tears I could feel coming. "I would try, Val. You know I would, but these people..." 

          I felt the warmth of her hand on my face followed by the warmth of tears leaking from underneath my lids. "They need you Mal." 

          I clenched my jaw. I could feel my heart begin to break. "So, I can't." I opened my eyes, determined to face whatever it was that was coming next. I felt sick, my stomach churning like nothing else.

          Valarie looked at me for a long moment and then turned away, looking out and into the city. "So," 

          Here it comes...

          "we add that to the list, then."

          I felt my head cock to the side of its own volition. "Uh...what, now?"

          "Travel the world, defend the innocent and the helpless, write a book, marry me." She said, turning her head towards me just enough that I could see her smile. "They don't have to be in that order, but...yeah."

          I just stood there, unsure of what I just heard. "So you..."

          Val turned on her heel with a finger pointed in my direction. "This is not an official proposal, Mal." She gave me a wry grin and a raised eyebrow. I couldn't tell if she was trying to hide the moisture on her cheeks or not. "I want an amazing dinner, an _amazing night_ , for that matter, that ends with you on one knee in a nice suit or something like that holding a ring that didn't come out of a gumball machine or is edible." She walked over to me and draped her two perfect arms around me. "I want a real ring. It doesn't have to be pricey and showy or any of that shit. A ring. With a stone. Preferably a diamond but I _will_ accept a birthstone."

          I could feel the corners of my mouth moving themselves upward. "So then...you want this? With me? You sure? You said that you were scared. 'Terrified' was the word you used, I think."

          "I've thought about this for a long time, Mal." Valarie revealed. "And I'm more in love with you than I am terrified of what could happen. So, Yeah." She leaned in with a nod and a smile and kissed me, slowly. Her lips pressed against mine and moved gently as she withdrew them again. "I'm pretty sure you're the only one I could ever want this with, Mal."

          I felt my arms go around her waist as I leaned forward and reconnected my lips with hers, continuing the kiss and pulling her against me as it deepened. Our lips caressed for a long moment before we separated them again. "How do you feel about a college proposal?" I wagered, a huge grin on my face and relief lightening my chest. "Senior year? Homecoming, maybe?"

          Val laughed and shook her head at me. I knew that I would always love the way she did that, among the countless other tiny and amazing things that were a part of who she was. "Take all of the surprise out of it, huh?" She slapped the back of my head with her palm. "Did you hear nothing that I said?"

          I pretended to wince at the impact as I stared at the sky for a moment, holding her there in my arms. "Let's see. Amazing night that includes dinner, suit, one knee, gorgeous ring." I muttered. "That about cover it?"

          She took her arms from around my neck and turned, holding fast to my own arms as she faced away from me, keeping them around her as she leaned back and rested her arms on top of mine. "Well, I didn't say it had to be gorgeous." She crooned. "But I wouldn't say no to that either, you know."

          I squeezed her, affectionately indulging myself in the feeling of her curves against me. I leaned into her ear and kissed her lobe. "I love you, Valarie."

          She turned her head to me as best as she could and captured my lips with her own for a short moment before releasing them again. "And I love you, Malak." She half-whispered to me as we watched the sun setting over the CBD. "Always."

          "Always."

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

          "Where is it that you go when you go away like that, Mua'Dib?" Valarie's voice snapped me out of my trance.

          I opened my eyes and smiled at the remembered line from our favorite mini-series. I remembered trying to get Rachel to watch it with me a couple of times, but she always gave up before the end of _part one_. "Many places." I replied, feeling the wet of the rain still pelting me as my sense of this reality began to return to me. It was softer now, I could sense now that the storm was passing. "Many roads."

          "Do you do this often? Because I could stand to see a lot more of this if you do." I could practically hear the heat just underneath her equally as audible smile as she added a playful "Rawr!"

           Still levitating, I unfolded my feet and stretched them out as they fell under me. I gently set myself down upon the grass and wiggled my toes in the wet blades and dirt a bit. "Not nearly as often as I'd like." I answered, amused, as I began to turn to face her. "We don't really get much in the way of thunderstorms...in...washing...ton..."

            She stood smiling in the doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of my sister's old yellow P.E. shorts and one of my printed tee-shirts. It was black and had a picture of a pixilated wizard shooting a blue fireball from a wand. Except the wizard was partially obscured by the long, wet, curly hair hanging from her horned head. She leaned against the frame of the doorway, gorgeous bare legs crossed casually as she held mugs of something steaming that smelled suspiciously like tea in each hand. Her tail absently swished back and forth for a moment before curling around her outtermost leg.

             All I was capable of doing at the moment was to stare at her: the way my oversized shirt clung to her still damp skin, showing off all of her curves, the shortness of the shorts that I could only just barely see underneath it, the way her red irises lit up against the black of her eyes. 

             Toping it all was the wry smile she gave me, the way that the crinkling of her nose made her look absolutely adorable and incredibly sexy at the same time. "Your hair doesn't get heavy being in the rain all that time?"

             That snapped me back to reality. I rose a hand to my hair and felt the weight of all of the water it had taken in like a sponge. I ran both hands over my head like a squeegee, drawing out the water and ringing it out through my ponytail; there was a lot of it. "Stars above, how long was I out here?"

             Val pushed herself off of the door frame with her shoulder and took the three steps it took to get to me, handing me one of the steaming mugs. "You were like this when I came back downstairs from the shower and then another twenty or so minutes after that." She paused a moment, and looked at one of my arms, then at the other. She blinked once or twice at them and I saw her eyes go wide. "You undertook the Dur'aysh?" She reached a hand out and gently caressed the tattooed skin.

              Alright, home game time. The Dur'aysh was an ancient Atlantian ritual used by wizards during the first age of Magic, back when the ancient elves were just really getting around to mastering the stuff and using it to shape the world around them. Back in those days, the understanding was that, while magic was a part of everything, it was still a very wild force of the universe. So, rather than use foci (Staves, wands, rings, amulets, etc,) the way many do today, they developed the Dur'aysh method.

              Essentially it's tattoo magic, but with a catch: you would etch glyphs and runes into your skin for whatever purposes you require. For me, I needed something that would be all-purpose, more or less - which requires a lot of runes... _a lot_. Anyway, the process of tattooing the runes is a bit different.

              Think of the traditional Cambodian sacred tattoos, where they use a stick needle instead of the more modern tattoo needles of today. Take that and enchant the needle. Then, add that the the runes don't just get tattooed onto your skin, but onto your soul matter as well. It more than adds an element of danger to the process where, if you get it wrong, you won't be able to simply cover up or undo the tattoo.

              It's completely part of you now, and, if you get it wrong, you run the risk not of being killed or destroyed by the magic you're using...

              Screw it up and you will unmake yourself; erasing yourself from the very fabric of time and reality itself.

              So when people do it, it's a _huge_ deal. 

              When I did it to myself, it was the first time anyone in Faerie had attempted it in around fifteen hundred years. My at-the-time mentor, K'un Luan Du'n cautioned me against it pretty aggressively, saying it would take time and patience as a tattoo like that takes some time to acclimate to, both on a physical and spiritual (literal spirit here) level. 

              Needless to say, I didn't listen to the old man.

              The tattoos ran from both of my wrists all the way up to my shoulders and end at the inner edge of my shoulder-blades.

              It took me 6 months to complete the entire process and another 3 before I could use my magic again without an insane amount of pain. 

              Needless to say, it worked and I managed to not unmake myself.

              "How do you know about the Dur'aysh?" I asked her, absently rotating the mug in my hands.

              She frowned at the question. "Alvarez." She grunted. "He's practically covered in them." She shut her eyes in a grimace that invoked the feeling not being able to unsee something incredibly disgusting. She shook herself from it and looked at them again. "It's beautiful." She admired. "The way they shimmer occasionally just...wow.  Who did you find that was able to do this."

              I blinked. "Uh...no one. This hadn't been done to anyone in centuries."

              Her face scrunched in confusion. "Then how did...did you do this _on your own_?"

              I nodded. "I found a bunch of scrolls and tomes on it in one of K'un's libraries and pretty much had to memorize them to learn how. I had to use a duplication spell and temporarily clone myself in order to do all of the more detailed glyphs and the areas of my arms I couldn't reach myself, but...yeah."

              She shook her head at me. "You could have undone yourself, you idiot!" She shouted, pushing me hard in the chest, her eyes glowing brightly. "You could have undone yourself and every memory of you I had would be nothing, gone. You would never have existed to me." She then punched me in the chest and this time I staggered back a little bit. "I shouldn't be at all surprised." She walked back into the house and away from me. "You put yourself at risk constantly after you learned about your powers, but this is _insane_ Mal." She rounded the table in the middle of the room, slamming the mug on its surface and stood there, facing me, her arms folded and her tail sweeping agitatedly behind her.

              I stared at her as I followed her into the house. "I had to, Val." I spoke softly, hoping to diffuse some of her anger. "You know I did and I know that you know why."

              Her eyes glowered at me, the red in them burning brightly. I could see her breathing deeply. "You aren't allowed to die on me now, Mal." She nearly growled at me. "I only just got you back. You are _banned_ from doing anything stupid that could get you _killed_ or _unmade_ or _transfigured into mush_."

              I placed my untouched tea on the island as I walked towards her, waving my hand and willing the table to slide across the floor and out from between us. I crossed the distance to her, still glowering angrily at me. "I'm not going anywhere, Valarie." I put a hand on each arm and pulled her to me, staring directly into her eyes. "And you can't tell me what to do. You're not my dad." I cracked softly as I rubbed my fingers up and down the soft skin.

              She closed her eyes, trying very hard not to smile at the terrible joke. "No." She answered, opening her eyes in time for me to see their burning dim to more of a simmer. "But I am someone who loves you, who would lose her mind if something were to happen to you, Mal."

              I sighed, my heart swelling at her words, my head swimming as I tried, desperately, to process everything that was happening. "You know that I can't promise you that nothing insane will happen." I said, pleading for her to understand. "My life's been an insane circus, especially after I got back from Faerie. Hell, Val, the last year has been a shit-storm of crazy all on its own." I remembered dying in the street, in shock and feeling my life slowly ebb from me, and then that strange place with the towers, the Goddess that talked to me there and the ordeal I went through to get back to the land of the living.

                No one comes back from something like that unaffected...unchanged. I still dream about it, the crystal tower, touching my hand to the tome within, the knowledge and power flooding through me, and then being in my body again, fighting that nightmare and obliterating it. "You think I wouldn't lose mine if something happened to _you_? If I lost _you_ again?" I fought with myself to keep my voice even. "To go through everything I've been through these past years, to find you after all this time to lose you again to those New Edition rejects or that Demon you're betrothed to?" I took a deep breath as I watched the rage induced fire in her eyes die down to its natural red.

                "You're really going to have to tell me about all of this stuff you keep mentioning without explaining." Val shook her head at me. "It's starting to get annoying, not knowing what you're talking about."

                I gave her a grin. "If you got the time later, we can go somewhere and have some ice cream and I can tell you everything."

                She gave me a smirk and raised that eyebrow again. "Everything?"

                I chuckled at that. "Promise."

                "And all it takes is time and ice cream?" 

                “If you recall, I always have been a cheap date." I winked at her. "Wait. Did you make tea?" I asked, having suddenly remembered the mugs sitting on the table and island. "Is that Jasmine and Ginger?"

                Her face reddened a little. "Is it okay?" She asked, suddenly looking as uncertain as I had ever seen her. "I remembered that being your favorite and I saw it in the pantry and you were out in the rain and I thought: 'why not make him something warm' and then I got excited for remembering and I couldn't wait to give it to you and now it's probably cold and we didn't really get to drink any and...shit!" She took a breath. "Sorry, I still ramble on, apparently."

                I smiled wide, my hands pressed together in front of my face as I fought the urge to laugh. "Clearly." I managed to finally answer. "Shit, I missed you!"

                A smile lit up her face and she walked over to me, placing a hand on my chest, feeling the jackhammering in my chest that her touch induced. "I missed you too." She moved that hand and let it trace the tattoos on my arm. "We're both so different now."

                I nodded, enjoying the feather-light touch of her fingers against my skin. "Yeah." I breathed, not taking my eyes away from her face. "So much time has passed and a lot's changed."

                "Do you think we could go back to the way things were?" She chewed her lip nervously. "Before all of this happened...before I left?"

                I shook my head slowly, watching the look of surprise take her features. "I don't think so, Val." I answered. "That was so long ago for the both of us...but..." I took a deep breath. "Since we're different people now...maybe...we go about this differently."

                I saw her smile again, a smile that lit up her eyes, despite the tears forming there, and spread across her face, showing me the gleaming fanged teeth that had replaced the more human canines that she had before she disappeared. "I really would like that, Mal." She tried to talk but it came out through sobs and half-whispers. 

                There was an overwhelming warmth that took hold of me then, an almost manic kind of elation that seemed to tickle and electrify every inch of me. I felt myself smile wider than I had in entirely too long and I just stood there, gazing at the half-demon woman I was still hopelessly in love with. In the next moment she was in my arms our arms wrapped around each other, laughing and crying and holding each other as tightly as we had ever done. We pulled away from one another and just stood there, giggling like a couple of idiots, staring at each other until something else entirely took hold of me, something primal and carnal and overwhelming. I could see the literal heat in Val's eyes and the change in her breathing, the way she took her bottom lip between her teeth and the subtle change in her posture.

                Before I knew it she was in my arms again her legs wrapped around me, her arms around my neck, her mouth capturing mine in a passionate exchange of kisses I eagerly returned with all of the pent up heat I had been holding back from the moment I laid eyes on her again. Her hips ground against me, eliciting a sensation that shot through my core and back again earning her the same, albeit involuntary reaction from me. 

                She moaned into my mouth as my hands found the soft flesh of her bottom and kneaded gently, stumbling with her toward the staircase and losing my balance, twisting us around so that it was my back that struck the banister instead of hers. I pushed off of the ground with her wrapped around me, floating with her up the staircase, our mouths and tongues still passionately fighting for dominance. Her hands went into my hair, weaving her fingers through my dreadlocks until she found herself a good grip at the back of my head that triggered a long growl from me.

                So, I like getting my hair puled, apparently. Noted.

                We reached the door to my room and I freed a hand to wave it open, pinning her to the nearest wall once we were past the threshold, her legs still wrapped tightly around my waist, her tail wrapped around one of my forearms. I took my lips from hers and began planting kisses up the her jawline and to her earlobe, my tongue finding it and guiding it to my mouth where I caught it between me teeth.

                There was a gasp and a sight hiss that escaped Val’s mouth followed by the bucking of her hips against me, causing my hardening sex to throb between us as she ground herself against me. I continued by clamping my mouth upon her neck, sucking and nipping at the sensitive flesh with my teeth, the salty sweetness of her skin and the scent of her, like burnt cedar and cinnamon, filling my senses as her moans and whimpers filled my ears. My hands found the hem of the shirt she borrowed from me draped over her torso and lifted the fabric up to her arms, pulling my face away from her neck and staring into her glowing red eyes.

                 Valarie stared back at me, teeth gleaming with her wide fanged smile as she lifted her arms so that her hands were above her head. I tugged at the shirt and it gave way lifting past the round globes of her breasts as they bounced below the hem of the fabric and over her head. I took the opportunity to pin her hands to the wall as I lowered my head and clasped my mouth upon one of her dark nipples, my teeth teasing the flesh of the nubs. I heard her breath catch and suckled at her breast, my tongue now tracing the area my teeth had just teased as my free hand found and cupped the other breast and squeezed it gently.

                 "Damnit, Mal!" Val moaned, burying her face into the top of my head. "I'd forgotten how good your lips feel." She gasped again as I pinched at her nipple with my free hand, still servicing the other with lips, tongue, and teeth. "Oooohh, YES!" She hissed as she continued to slowly undulate herself against my hardened crotch, causing me to moan into the flesh of her breast and jerk my own hips up at her.

                 Without warning she tore her hands away from mine and grabbed me by the hair once more, lifting my head up and crashing her warm and wet lips against mine, shoving her tongue into my mouth and engaging in another wrestling match with my own tongue. I growled into her mouth and she returned it with one that was more primal than any sound I could have made but promised that I wouldn't be forgetting tonight any time soon. She tore her lips away from mine and rested her hands against either side of my face, cupping my jaws while her now clawed fingers grazed at the flesh of my face. "Take. Them. Off." she said, her glowing red eyes bored into mine and my hands acted, almost of their own volition, stripping my dark blue jeans down my legs and stepping out of them. She slowly slid her legs down my body, my face still in her hands as she pulled me closer pressing against me. I could feel the warmth of her skin against me, still damp after her shower, as I wrapped my arms around her waist, my hands sliding and kneading across her back and hips as we stood in the middle of the room. She released my mouth and started to move them down my jawline and to my neck, nipping at the flesh and grazing my skin with her fangs. Her hot tongue traced every spot her lips and teeth touched as she worked her way to my collarbone as her hands found my stomach and traced the muscles of my abdomen. Her fingers absently toyed with the waistband of my boxer shorts as she continued to kiss and lick at the skin of my neck and collarbone and I found one of my hands in her hair, gently tugging at the damp, dark curls. A moan escaped her lips as a finger grazed one of her beautifully ridged horns.

                  "Mmmm. Shit, Mal, that feels good!" She breathed into my neck

                  So her horns are sensitive. Good to know.

                  I moaned low in response and brought my free hand to the waistband of her gym shorts, slipping a finger between it and her skin as I lightly traced the curve of her waist to her hip and back to where it met with her tail. My hand slid along the base of it and I could feel the end of it sliding up and down my back, invoking a shiver out of me and a sultry chuckle from her against the nape of my neck that sent more tingles to various parts of my body. 

                  "Careful, love." She whispered. " _Sunday_ is very sensitive when I'm...like this."

                  I narrowed my eyes in amusement. "You named your _tail_?" I asked, my voice little more than a growl against her hair, my other hand tracing the tip of one of her horns, inducing another moan from Val's lips. "Of course you did." I answered my own question as I slid my entire hand beneath the fabric of her shorts, taking a handful of her firm ass and squeezing, my fingers kneading into the flesh of her as I pulled her closer to me. 

                  "Ooooh...so...not...playing fair..." she moaned as I ground my solid manhood against her groin, her leg lifted slightly as she grazed a soft, smooth thigh against mine, rolling her hips against me in return as she flicked her tongue to my neck and sending a circled stroke of warmth across my jugular.

                  I moaned as she reciprocated the action. "One to talk...mmm..." I took her by a tuft of he hair and angled her face back towards me, my lips descending upon hers and caressing the softness of her own, her whimper lost within my mouth as it reverberated against my tongue. I could feel the tip of her tail slowly sliding down my spine and then sliding into my boxers. There was a tug and my boxers were on the floor and my hardness was in her soft hands as they moved up it's length before returning to the base again. I could only moan her name at the sensation she stimulated in me, at the fire in my core constantly being stoked. I moved my hand from her hair and slid my fingers across her stomach and to the waistband of her shorts, but in the next moment she had pushed me onto the bed, where I lay naked and at attention for her to see. 

                  I kept my head angled just enough that I could watch Val as she moved towards me, her clawed hands roaming over her breasts and her stomach, desire showing in her every movement. She took the waistband of her shorts and pushed them away from her hips, shimmying the shorts down her delicious thighs and exposing the trimmed pubis of her sex to me. She looked over her own body as she continued to move forward, her tail absently twitching behind her, a low growl escaping her as she licked her lips at me, her eyes glowing as bright as I had ever seen them, her breasts rising and falling with each breath.

                  She was a half-demon goddess in that moment, and she was mine. I attempted to sit all the way up but she was on me in an instant, pushing me back onto the bed with one clawed hand while her head lowered itself to my chest. Her tongue flicked forward and made contact with my stomach, the heat of it seemed to travel directly to my crotch, causing my erection to twitch against her chest. She let her tongue linger in and around my belly button, her eyes gazing up at me as she smiled seductively. She was teasing me and she knew it, knew exactly what she was doing as she took my hardened heat in her hand and slowly ran her fingers along the shaft. She continued to lick and nip at my stomach, leaving warm and wet kisses in place of her teeth as she moved her lips up to my chest. I moaned as her tongue flicked the risen nub of my nipple just before clasping her mouth over it and sucking on it, gently, slowly grazing her teeth ever so slightly over the sensitive skin. The near-electric tingling that the wet warmth of her mouth caused triggered a gasp and and arch in my back that made me shiver a little.

                   It was then that my hunger for her got the better of me and I took her by the face and pulled her up to mine, grabbing her by her hips with my other hand so that she now straddled me. I sat up with her and kissed her ravenously, grinding myself into her warm, wet center provoking moans and sighs from the pair of us as we moved together feverishly. Her arms were loose around my neck as I pushed myself against her and she rolled herself against me, generating ripple after ripple of mind-numbing sensation as our warm, wet mouths clashed and moved against each other. I gripped tightly to her hips, holding her in place as I shifted myself back and then forward again.

                   There was a parting of lips and a ragged catch of silent breaths from the both of us as I entered her core, the warmth of her enclosing me completely as we began to move together in union. We looked into each other's eyes for what seemed like forever as we undulated with one another, the glow of Val's eyes dimmed and brightened as we created a slow and steady rhythm that began to slowly consume us in a flame that was made flesh.  I was completely enraptured by her every motion, every sensation and scent of her, every sound that escaped her lips as we wound ourselves within and around each other. Every kiss of her lips against me was a tattoo of herself on me, marking me as her own.

                   I didn't notice that we were levitating until my back was against the ceiling and I could feel the rough drywall against my naked skin as we moved to match each other, stroke for stroke in the dark. I willed us a bit lower as we continued to move together, our lips and teeth marking one another, our hands roaming and exploring each other's skin and her legs and tail wrapped around me as we moved, clumsily moved together in mid air, revolving this way and that, reveling in the moments when she would let go and let her head hang back in the throes of a gasp or a moan. "Fuck, I missed you so much..." Val said. "I love you so much." She spoke as she flung her head forward to look at me again. "I'm not letting go of you ever again."

                   "I'm holding you to that, babe." I was just able to say as she thrust her hips to collide with mine.

                   "No, Beloved." She spoke as she flipped us around in the air so that she was on top as we floated there. "At the moment, you are holding _me_...mmm...to _you_." she clasped her mouth down upon mine again as I moved my hands up and down her back, lowering the two of us back to the bed. As we settled in, she sat up and stared at me with her beautifully luminescent scarlet eyes as she moved her hips against me. She took one of my hands away from her hip and held it within her own as she moved. "Malak..." she began, "I love you...mmm...I love you and I always will..."

                   I continued moving beneath her, doing my best to match her movements with my own hips. "I love you, Valarie...Oooohhh, shit!" I answered her. "Always."

                   She closed her eyes, and the roll of her hips became faster as she held my hand to her heart and placed her free hand upon my own heart. "Mmmm, Mal!" she moaned as I pushed against her in equal measure. "You're mine, beloved." She moved her hand to cup my face, caressing my cheek with her thumb. "Always."

                   "And you are...oh damn, baby..." I breathed as I moved inside of her, I could feel the pressure building, the proverbial cliff quickly approaching as I struggled to concentrate on her words and my own as I watched and felt her gorgeous form moving with me. "You are mine." I finally managed, struggling to keep my eyes from rolling to the back of my head with pleasure. I looked directly into her piercing red eyes. "Always and forever."          

                   Her body bucked then, and her movements started to build. I could feel her body becoming warmer as she moved, panting, her eyes closed, her teeth clenched. "Oh Gods, Mal!" Her skin began to glow then, just a little, as if there was a literal fire inside of her. I could see her veins now, glowing a brightly underneath her skin like hot embers after a wildfire, and they oscillated with the rhythm of her heartbeat as she continued moving. She opened her eyes, now completely alight with red fire, the inside of her mouth and throat aglow with the same fire as her breathing became faster, more ragged, and more desperate. The core of her felt deliciously molten as it moved completely sheathing my sex with its movements and I could feel myself aching there for release.

                   When she screamed my name I felt the heat and intensity of her release as it flowed down upon me, as the fire inside of her intensified in an explosion of passion that overtook me and I released wave after wave with her as her hair instantaneously whipped out above her head and caught aflame. Her voice reverberated through out the room and shook the very core of me, still awash in my own release as it pulsated through me.

                   Time separated itself from my perception and all I could feel and see was her, my Valarie convulsing with the spasms of her release, glowing like a fiery force of nature. I could feel it reach down into me and grab at my core as I chased her down the chasm of time-splitting passion, triggering a sea of electricity that flowed out from my pores and arced over the room. My heart jackhammered and my vision went completely white.

                   It felt like dying. Dying of love, of ecstasy, like dying of every kiss I had ever or would ever share with her.

                   Gods be damned, I'd die again and again and again with this woman. As many times as she wanted. 

                   In the next instant we were both back to our senses, collapsing on the bed together, spent and sweating. Her flame had subsided and noting, thankfully, had caught fire except for her hair. I, on the other hand, could smell the sheets below us, singed from the lightning that had lept from me.

                   She moved, slowly, almost serpentine as she slid herself into laying her head atop my chest, one gorgeously brown leg draped over mine while her hand rested on my neck. She sighed, soft and contented as her fingers idly caressed my jawline, occasionally snagging my earlobe between two fingers and giving it a gentle massage. My arms found their way around her without even trying, one hand resting upon one of the deliciously soft, round globe of her backside while the other lightly traced lines into her side. We lay there together in silence, our breathing evening out before finally syncing together, her warm breath tickling my skin as it disturbed the sparse hairs on my chest.

                   "I'm never letting you go." she spoke in a tone that was part whisper and part moan as she nuzzled her face into my chest.

                   I couldn't help the tears that fell from my eyes.

                   Yes. I'm a sap. Are you happy now? Have we dealt with that? Good.

                   Moving on.

                   "I love you, Valarie Genevieve Amari." The words slid out of my mouth like a long lost prayer to a god I hadn't realized I'd given up on and had, just now, re-devoted myself to. "Welcome Home."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                   I awoke alone, still stark naked, and covered in bedsheets and sunlight. I looked to the empty space at my left.

                   Had this all been a dream? Did we not make love last night and she had taken herself to bed in my sister's room?

                   Worse: had I not been dreaming and we did make love and she had simply...left?

                   My brain wrapped itself around that thought; the things she had said to me last night couldn't have been imagined, could they?

                   I sat up in the bed and swung my feet over the edge. I undid my hair from its long-suffered pony tail and allowed my dreads to fall freely against my back and shoulders as I took a long breath as I let the fear that I had been let down again well up inside of me. I pushed off of the bed and stood, my bare feet on the hardwood floor. I scanned the room and found the shirt she had worn, my wizard t-shirt, folded on top of my suitcase. I slung the shirt across my shoulder as I opened the case and pulled out a fresh pair of boxers. I stared at it for a moment, numb to everything, the deluge of thought flooding my head: 

                   * _There must be a reason.*_

_*No, there really doesn't have to be.*_

_*What if she doesn't want me involved in whatever she's tangled in?*_

_*What if she doesn't want me? What if she's changed her mind and decided to take the things she said to me and run.*_

_*She wouldn't do that.*_

_*Wouldn't she?*_

                   I violently shook my head at the thoughts and padded out of the bedroom, walking down the short hallway and into the bathroom, clutching the t-shirt and boxers in my hands.

                   It didn't take me long to relieve myself, shower, and brush my teeth; or, at least, it didn't feel like a long time. My mind kept preoccupying my perception of time with thoughts of:

_*You should have known this would end this way.*_

_*Leave me alone, brain. You don't know what you're talking about.*_

                   Now showered and lower half wrapped in a towel, I turned off the water in the sink and stared at my own reflection as I shook out my toothbrush. My ears twitching at the sound of...music? I could feel the raise of an eyebrow as I reached for my clothing, still sitting on the toilet seat where I had left it.

                   I shoved myself into the boxers and T-Shirt and poked my head through the bathroom doorway. Sure enough, there was music playing: an acoustic guitar accompanied by a thrumming bass line and a kick drum that I found my bare feet had begun to tap the floor in time with. Before I had time to wonder about the song, a familiar voice began to sing along with it:

 

_We were lovers in a past life_

_I can see it in your ~~green~~ chrome eyes_

_Maybe you were one of my wives_

_In a long lost tribe_

_There's just somethin' about you I know_

_Started centuries ago though_

_You see your kiss is like a lost ghost_

_Only I would know_

_But I, I keep on falling for you_

_Time After Time_

_Time After Time_

_I'll make you mine_

_Time after_

_Time After Time_

 

                    I felt my eyes go wide as all of the feeling returned to me, warmth flooding my chest and spreading rapidly as my heart attempted to pound its way out of my ribcage. I did my best to keep the water in my eyes from brimming over into tears as I flung myself over the banister and floated down to the living room.

                    The moment my feet touched the floor I sped to the kitchen where Val stood, her back to me, swaying beautifully to the music, wearing nothing but the shorts she had on last night and one of my button-up shirts with the arms rolled up to fit her. Her hair was tied up in a kind of wild bun that sat just between the tips of her horns and her tail swayed and swept through the air as she moved. The sounds of the radio and of her singing along were accompanied by the sound of something sizzling on the stove. I realized, then, that she was dancing in front of the oven.

                    She was making breakfast.

                    For us.

                    I had no words for what I was feeling, nothing to accurately describe the swell of warmth and happiness that filled me completely. I just stood there, happy and awe-struck and feeling like a complete ass for ever doubting that she would stay. The song eventually ended, however and as the three/four rhythm of an acoustic guitar began, I could see her lean her head back as it began to sway along with the rest of her.

                    I crept up behind her as silently as I could, swaying along with her as I slid my arms around her waist and pressed myself against her, burying my face in her hair. "Good morning, my dear heart."

                    "I was beginning to wonder how long you were going to stand there." She said, her voice low and smooth. She turned her head just enough to nuzzle her cheek against mine. "Good sleep."

                    I moaned an approval when she rolled her backside against my crotch stoking another fire there that incited a roll of my own hips against her as the memories of last night were pushed to the forefront of my mind. "The best." I moaned, kissing the corner of her mouth with as much of my own as I could give her in that position. "How did you know that I was there? I thought that I was pretty stealthy."

                    I watched her take the frying pan full of crisped bacon and sausages and move them over to an unlit burner before turning the active burner off and turning around to wrap her arms around my neck, allowing her hands to link, loosely, behind my head as we swayed together, my hands on her rear. She moaned as she touched her mouth to mine, her lips soft and warm as they captured my bottom lip and pulled gently, taking the taste of her with them. My lips moved forward, having none of that, and captured her bottom lip in turn before pulling away and resting my forehead against hers. She smiled wide at me, her eyes closed as we continued to sway to the music. "I could smell you." She spoke to me just above a whisper. "Well, I smelled your magic on you. It has a particularly lovely scent."

                    I smiled back, my eyes widening at her. "You can smell my magic?" My hands massaged at the globes of her backside as we moved.

                    "Mm-hm." She answered. "Like burning amber." She kissed my nose and giggled. "It practically radiates off of you, Beloved."

                    If it were possible for me to smile any wider, I think my face would split in two. "You called me that last night...'Beloved'." I mused. "I like it."

                    "Good." She said, smashing her lips into mine for a moment before resting her head against my shoulder. "Because I love you, and you are my Beloved."

                     Carefully avoiding the tips of her horns, I kissed the top of her head through the mass of curled hair, the scent of her - cinnamon and burning cedar - wafting into me. "I love you, Valarie, my devil woman." I nuzzled into her hair as she gave a a soft giggle before lifting her head towards me, red eyes gleaming as she pulled my head towards her own...

                      "Well, this is awfully nice..." another voice spoke, his deep Baritone was laced with a bit of a Scottish accent that was light enough to suggest that he might have been in the states for a while. There was a grit to his voice, but the tone was amused, even playful...happy. "Unexpected, of course, but still nice."

                       My eyes widened automatically, my breath catching in my throat. I knew that voice, knew it about as well as my own. I turned in the direction of the voice and found him standing in the archway to the living room. 

                       At six-four he stood a couple of inches taller than me, his dark brown hair was combed back and styled with some kind of gel. His rectangular spectacles hanging off of his sand colored nose off set his square shaped face and chiseled-ish jaw. He removed his leather jacket to reveal the black t-shirt underneath that read _**Thespians do everything better**_  in big white letters and hung it on the coat rack on the other side of the door. He wiped his hands against his blue jeans and leaned against the counter, looking at me, then Val, then back to me again, a wry smile across his face. "I can assume..." he started, wagging his eyebrows dramatically, his steel blue eyes locked on me. "...that there is a very interesting story behind this."

                     I nodded, a slow smile forming on mine as well. "You'd be right about that." I acknowledged.  

                     He walked over to the pair of us, standing in front of Valarie and beaming down at her. "Val, I cannot express just how good it is to see you again." He gave her a once-over. "The horns and tail are a bit new, but they seem to suit you." He reached behind us to the stove, picking off a sausage from the pan and quickly taking a bite of it before either of us could protest.

                      Val, grinning brightly, released me and was instantly swept into another embrace. "It's good to see you too, David." She laughed as he released her. "I didn't expect to see you so soon."

                      I nodded. "Yeah, I didn't expect you home from your conference for at least another day or so."

                      David chuckled. "Actors." he shook his head as he pulled one of the stools toward him and sat, facing us. "But that can come later." He took another bite of his sausage. "For now, son..." he watched as Val linked her arms around me and snuggled into my shoulder. He smiled warmly at the two of us standing in his kitchen after so long. "...I think you should tell me everything."

                      "Well, Dad..." I replied. "...maybe you should get yourself a tea or something..it's quite the story, so far."

 

_ **FIN** _

                   

                  

                  

                

                 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. 
> 
> Sorry this took so long to complete. Life gets in the way on occasion. I hope you enjoyed this preview into book two of the "I am Magic" series. Please let me know what you think. I'll be writing more short stories about Mal and his friends and adventures, so this isn't the end by a long shot.

**Author's Note:**

> Val's back. What does this mean for Mal?  
> Where's she been? What's she been up to all of this time?  
> What the hell is up with her eyes?
> 
> Find out in the Next Chapter: "Welcome Home"
> 
> (I seriously hope you all enjoyed this. Please comment and let me know what you think or ask questions if you'd like. Thanks and I'll see you at the next chapter)


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